Hett, County Durham

Croxdale and Hett is a civil parish in County Durham, England. It is situated approximately four miles south of Durham. The population of the civil parish as taken at the 2011 census was 866.The parish comprises the settlements of: Croxdale Hett Sunderland BridgeFor electoral purposes the parish is divided into two wards: Hett — covers the village of Hett and elects three parish councillors. Sunderland Bridge — covers the villages of Croxdale and Sunderland Bridge and elects six parish councillors.Labour currently has a majority on the parish council.

Croxdale Hall is a privately owned country mansion situated at Croxdale near Sunderland Bridge, County Durham. It is a Grade I listed building.

Thinford is a small hamlet in County Durham, England. It is situated to the east of Spennymoor, between Darlington and Durham at the intersection of the A167 and the A688. It consists of only a few houses, but contains a pub and restaurant serving a wider area, as well as a McDonald's restaurant, a KFC restaurant, a Starbucks Coffee Drive Thru, a Burger King Drive Thru, and BP filling station serving traffic on the A167, which also features a Spar convenience store, along with a Greg's bakery and Subway. Thinford is in the process of a multimillion-pound redevelopment known as Durham Gate. This is due to bring hundreds of new homes, shops and office facilities. Work has already started on the development and people are already living in new homes built by Taylor Wimpey and Maple Oak Homes. About one mile to the east of Thinford, there is an electrical substation, which is linked by a line of L6 pylons to the Stella West substation in Tyneside, and by a line of L12 400 kV pylons (which replaced the older L66 275 kV pylons in 2011) to the Norton substation in Teesside.

Croxdale is a village in the civil parish of Croxdale and Hett, situated about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Durham City, in County Durham , England and on the A167 road, formerly part of the Great North Road. It is on the route of the East Coast Main Line and at one time had a station. The railway crosses over Croxdale Viaduct, built in 1872, just north of the village. The Weardale Way long distance footpath passes through the nearby Croxdale Hall estate.

Sunderland Bridge is a village in the civil parish of Croxdale and Hett, in the County Durham district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, England. It is about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Durham city. In 1961 the parish had a population of 907.The village takes its name from a grade I listed bridge just outside the village. Sunderland meaning sundered or separated land, in this case parish lands separated from the parish of St Oswald's in Durham City, by the River Wear. The village is home to St Bartholomew's Church, a Victorian church built between 1843 and 1846 (by George Pickering) and extended between 1876 and 1878 (by C.H. Fowler), with the addition of a new nave and chancel. The church was built to serve the new settlement of Croxdale Colliery which had rapidly developed less than half a mile south of the village to house workers for the new mine workings in the area (now simply known as Croxdale). The land for the church was given by the Salvin family of nearby Croxdale Hall in exchange for the old chapel on the Croxdale estate. The churchyard is the resting place of James Finlay Weir Johnston the founding father of Durham Johnston School in near by Durham.

Butterby Oxbow is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Durham City district of County Durham, England. It consists of a former meander of the River Wear which was isolated from the main river in 1811 when, to reduce flooding in the area, a new channel was constructed across the neck of the meander. It is located about 3 km south of the centre of Durham and 1.2 km north of the nearest village, Croxdale. The site is notable for the succession series of swamp, fen and fen-carr which has developed and which is rarely found as a complete sequence in the county. It is locally important as a roosting and wintering area for wildfowl.

Tudhoe is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) south of the city of Durham. It lies just outside Spennymoor, a short distance to the west of the Great North Road. The village is now a quiet backwater, its green a cul-de-sac that runs down from the main road towards the River Wear. In former times, however, Tudhoe lay at the centre of a network of roads: one ran to Durham by way of Sunderland Bridge and Croxdale, another to Kirk Merrington, a third to Bishop Auckland, a fourth to Whitworth and Byers Green, and a fifth across a ford to Brancepeth Castle and village on the far side of the river. All except the Brancepeth road are shown, somewhat schematically, on Thomas Jeffrey's map of County Durham of 1758. Tudhoe is now dwarfed by Spennymoor, an industrial town that grew up around the Tudhoe iron works in the 19th century. The modern town of Spennymoor lies only a few fields from Tudhoe, but the contours are such that it cannot be seen from most of the village, and Tudhoe today gives the impression that it is still an isolated country village. For most of its history, Tudhoe has been in the parish of Brancepeth. The parish church of St Brandon's, dating from the 16th century, was one of the finest village churches in County Durham until its destruction by fire in 1998. Brancepeth lies across the River Wear from Tudhoe; there has never been a bridge, and the ford was not an easy one. In winter, it was often impassable, and Tudhoe baptisms, weddings and burials then took place at Whitworth. Because of this, Tudhoe was always seen (from Brancepeth) as an isolated outpost. Tudhoe's own Anglican churches, Holy Innocents and St David's, were not built until 1866 and 1880, respectively, though there is a large Catholic church, dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo, which was founded in 1858. Tudhoe was renowned as a mining village until the end of the 20th century. Until the closure of the mines, the wealthy Colliery Masters took up residence in a grand mansion known as The Loggins, which stands in several acres of its own land and overlooks the area. Tudhoe United FC are the local football team and play in Spennymoor Sunday League.

Croxdale railway station served the village of Croxdale, County Durham, England from 1872 to 1938 on the East Coast Main Line.

Metal Bridge is a hamlet in County Durham, England, situated a few miles south of Durham. The East Coast Main Line runs directly through Metal Bridge but trains do not stop. Metal Bridge is situated within the civil parish of Ferryhill.

Mount Pleasant is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated immediately to the north-east of Spennymoor, close to Tudhoe.

The Diocese of Durham is a Church of England diocese, based in Durham, and covering the historic county of Durham (and therefore including the part of Tyne and Wear south of the River Tyne, and excluding southern Teesdale). It was created in AD 635 as the Diocese of Lindisfarne. The cathedral is Durham Cathedral and the bishop is the Bishop of Durham who used to live at Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland, and still has his office there. The diocese's administrative centre, the Diocesan Office, is located at Cuthbert House, Stonebridge just outside Durham City. This was opened in 2015.

Tursdale is a hamlet in County Durham, England. It is situated in rural landscape about two miles to the west of Coxhoe, two miles North of Cornforth and around five miles south of Durham. It is part of the civil parish of Cassop-cum-Quarrington. It is ideally located for speedy access to both Durham city, the A1M, and Teesside via Sedgefield. Despite its close proximity to many local amenities and towns, residents enjoy the peaceful lifestyle of living in a semi-rural location, with lovely views across the fields. Tursdale currently consists of a single street of housing, Ramsay Street, a school house and a small 4 home conversion of the former school which closed in the 1960s. A second street, School Street, a row of bungalows and other dwellings were demolished in the 1960s and early ’70s. Standalone Farm, whose final remnants probably went at about the same time, may once have been a moated house of some antiquity. All houses in Tursdale, other than farms, were originally built to accommodate the miners who worked at the former Tursdale Colliery across the road, which was sunk in 1854. Before that, the more ancient settlement of Tursdale had been around Tursdale House and Hett Mill, to the north east. The colliery was merged with Bowburn Colliery in 1931. When that closed, in 1967, the NCB Tursdale Workshops continued to provide a regional, and then a national, resource for the NCB. They closed in 1994, and the site was converted to general business use. Behind this small business park lie the railway lines. Tursdale has been proposed as a suitable site for a road-rail freight interchange due to its proximity to both the East Coast Main Line, the mothballed Leamside Line and the A1(M) motorway.