Newton Hall

Newton is first mentioned in the Boldon Buke of 1183. This was Durham's equivalent of the Domesday Book, and it records that Newton was a farmhouse or settlement belonging to William, a former abbot of Peterborough [46].

By 1337 the Bowes family held the manor of Newton and retained it until 1565, when it was sold to Anthony Middleton. On his death in 1581 it was sold to Thomas Blaikston, whose family kept the estate until shortly after 1662, when the Liddell family acquired it.

The Liddell family held Ravensworth Castle, near Gateshead, as well as Newton manor and it was this is this northern part of the county that they developed their coal mining interests and acquired their wealth. Sir Henry Liddell (c1644–1723) was one of the prime movers in attempts to regulate the North East coal trade in the early 18th century, and he served as MP for Durham in 1689 and 1695-8, and Newcastle from 1701 – 10. It was under his guidance that the old Newton Hall was restored around 1717–23.

A collection of Sir Henry's letters and drawings reveal a great deal about these buildings and gardens at Newton. One of the earliest is a builder's final account for the main construction work dated 5 November 1717. The resultant remodelling was very successful, as the Hall's handsome west front would show. [47]

During this work by Thomas Dobson, the new sash windows, created to a contemporary design statement were made and installed. These were originally made in London, and some were sent up to Newton Hall, but after difficulties fixing them Sir Henry agreed to have local craftsmen complete the work [48].

The building was later extended in 1751, by adding an attic floor [47]. The main hall occupied a site of 50m x 67m with a height of approx. 8.5m. The house was mainly constructed out of brick with ashlar quoins (uniform blocks of brick) with three floors. The southern aspect had four fluted pilasters, and this was the Hall’s main frontage which faced due south with a view of the city centre. [49]

The main house was a seven bay, three storied house, of brick with stone dressings, quoins, string course between first and attic storey and moulded architraves to the windows. The centre three bays were elaborated with Ionic pilasters through two storeys, an elaborate pulvinated frieze and cornice. The house had fine entrance gates to this entrance front and stone piers. The pretty Georgian brick summerhouse survived until recently.

Newton Hall was both elegant and bold, a fine example of a provincial Georgian house of the middle of the eighteenth century. Rainwater heads must have been added when the building was extended as these were dated 1751. [50]

Sir Henry Liddell’s successor, Thomas, sold the house in 1812 to William Russell, the son of a Sunderland banker and the richest commoner in England. He owned Brancepeth Castle and was also a local coal owner.

Emma Maria Russell, who was the sister and heiress of William Russell, and she married the 7th Viscount Boyne, subsequently named Gustavus Russell. The Brancepeth Estate must have retained the mining rights and control of the Estate lands as the Viscount is named in all indentures between the Estate and the mining activities from 1838.

By the late 1830’s Newton Hall had passed to the Spearman family, and a letter from H.J. Spearman, Newton Hall, is dated 20/09/1845 [51]

By the 1880s the house belonged to the Maynards, a Yorkshire family who made their fortune from ironstone mining. A tithe map of 1846 shows that within the township of Skinningrove (on the east Cleveland coast) and to the west of the beck, was property owned by John Charles Maynard and the Earl of Zetland [52].

In the later part of the 19th Century, Newton Hall ceased to be a private residence and was taken over as a branch of County Durham's hospital for mentally ill patients, based in Sedgefield.

There are a number of photos showing the main house being used as a military barracks during World War I.

Group photograph of officers and men of various regiments outside of Newton Hall, probably including Major Watson, 18th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry, n.d. 1914 – 1918 [67]

18th DLI (Durham Pals), part of Kitchener's New Army raised in September 1914 in Durham. "C" Company 18 DLI standing outside front of Newton Hall, November 1914. [68]

Finally vacated after the First World War, it was demolished in 1926. During this work a tragic incident occurred when a joist thrown by a workman accidentally killed 14-year-old John Arnison. He had left school only three days earlier and his first job was cleaning the bricks removed from the hall for recycling. His name is remembered in the naming of the local shopping area, Arniston Centre, built in 1989 and opened in 1990. [46]

Its walls and gardens remained in a fragmentary state, in part, right up until the early 1970s, when the increasing demand for housing development on the old estate finally obliterated the remaining upstanding remains. [47]

The Newton Hall housing estate was built on the open land, now depleted of the main manor house. Designed for 3,500 homes and built by a consortium of housebuilders led by William Leech (who sold land to Barratt and Bell) as well as local Council housing which were first built in the 1950’s. The first commercial homes were occupied in the mid-1960s, many of them by prison officers serving in what became the three local Durham prisons from the 1970’s.

“Leech was a big leasehold man”, I was told when I met with two local councillors and a resident who moved onto the estate in its very early years. All the houses were originally sold with leases of 99 years. Many people bought them when they were the leases were nominal at £25/year, but the freehold purchase is now around £17,000-£20,000. [53]

Leech donated a sizeable plot of land to the Methodist and Anglican Churches, who chose to work together and create a joint building All Saints in 1967. The Church has moveable seats rather than fixed pews and a well-designed kitchen, allowing it to be in constant use during the week by groups in the community [53]

The oldest remaining building on the site is Newton Hall farm cottage which stands hidden in trees off Carr House Drive, just down from the old fish pond which is drained but still visible. One of the wells used by the hall for drinking water still sits in what is now a garden close by. [47].

The main body of the Newton Hall was located about where Brancepeth Close stands today, although the hall and its walled gardens covered a wider area. A tower-shaped gazebo was on the edge of the gardens, where Eggleston Close is today.

Some old cottages incorporating part of the hall's stable block remain and the ditch of a picturesque avenue that was part of the garden can be traced in places.

An entrance driveway linked the hall to Framwellgate and Durham to the west, and this more or less followed the course of Carr House Drive. The wooded section of this road is a remnant of the Hall's gardens while a community centre nearby is in a former farmhouse of Low Carr House. [46]