Thorpe Thewles, Vane Arms and village green - geograph

Thorpe Thewles is a village which had history dating back to the 12th century. The village shares a parish with Grindon and is in the

Borough of Stockton-on-Tees The Borough of Stockton-on-Tees is a unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the counties of County Durham and North Yorkshire, England. The borough had a population of 191,600 in 2011. The main settlemen ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, Northern England. It lies near the A177 road between

Stockton-on-Tees Stockton-on-Tees, often simply referred to as Stockton, is a market town in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees in County Durham, England. It is on the northern banks of the River Tees, part of the Teesside built-up area. The town had an estimated ...

and

Sedgefield Sedgefield is a market town and civil parish in County Durham, England. It had a population of 5,211 as at the 2011 census. It has the only operating racecourse in County Durham. History Roman A Roman 'ladder settlement' was discovered by C ...

Origin of the name

Thorpe is of Danish extraction and means farm,

Thorp ''Thorp'' is a Middle English word for a hamlet or small village. Etymology The name can either come from Old Norse ''þorp'' (also ''thorp''), or from Old English (Anglo-Saxon) ''þrop''. There are many place names in England with the suffi ...

, and Thewles was likely the name of a family that possessed land here in the Middle Ages: the earliest occurrence of the full name is 'Thorpp' Thewles' in 1265. The surname Thewles probably comes from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

'immoral', though the meaning of the placename is the Farm of the Thewles Family rather than, as sometimes reported, the Immoral Farm. The name has been confused as North Pewles when in translation.

History

Galfried de Torp was a landowner in the mid-12th century. Members of the Thorp family donated land to the monks of

Finchale Priory Finchale Priory () sometimes referred to as Finchale Abbey was a 13th-century Benedictine priory. The remains are sited by the River Wear, four miles from Durham, England. It is a Grade I listed building. Early history Godric was born about ...

. The Fulthrope family occupied the manor from 1346 to 1629 while the Kendals, the Sedgewicks, the Tweddells and the Blackstones also owned land from the 16th to 18th centuries. Old station at Thorpe Thewles - geograph

Old station at Thorpe Thewles - geograph

Historic events include the earliest reference to Thorpe Thewles in 1265, the partial rebuilding of St Thomas Church (now a ruin) at Grindon in 1788, a school was built by the Marchioness of Londonderry in 1824, the Holy Trinity Church was built in 1849 but demolished in the 1880s, the railway viaduct was completed in 1877 and the station opened in 1882 and both the St James Church and the Wesleyan Methodist chapel were established in 1887.

Present

Thorp Thewles, St James church (geograph 7071905)

The village is currently made up of 182 households and a total population of 477 people. The village has a small children's play area, two public houses (the Vane Arms and the Hamilton Russell), a church (St James' Church) and a Parish hall. There is a

planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetarium ...

, walkway and restaurant at

Castle Eden Walkway A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

, the site of the former railway station of the former

Castle Eden Railway The Castle Eden Railway was a railway line built by the North Eastern Railway between Bowesfield Junction near Stockton-on-Tees and Wingate, County Durham, Northeast England. Although its route actually never went near Castle Eden, it was al ...

Historically, Thorpe Thewles was originally settled in 1692 with only two farmhouses and has grown to have more than 182 households today.

Politics

Thorpe Thewles is located within the civil parish of

Grindon and Thorpe Thewles Grindon may refer to: Places *Grindon, County Durham, England * Grindon, Northumberland, a location in England *Grindon, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England *Grindon, Staffordshire, England Other *Leopold Hartley Grindon Leopold Hartley Grindon ...

, in the

borough of Stockton-on-Tees The Borough of Stockton-on-Tees is a unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the counties of County Durham and North Yorkshire, England. The borough had a population of 191,600 in 2011. The main settlemen ...

in the Northern Parishes Ward and the Stockton North constituency. The Member of the UK Parliament for Thorpe Thewles is

Alex Cunningham Alexander Cunningham (born 1 May 1955) is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Stockton North since 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Shadow Minister for Courts and Sentencing since 2020. Born i ...

and the local councilor for Thorpe Thewles is John Gardner.

References

Villages in County Durham Borough of Stockton-on-Tees {{Stockton-geo-stub