The Middles

Craghead is a former mining village in County Durham, England. It is located at the bottom of the valley to the south of Stanley, on the main road between Stanley and Durham, and not far from the village of Edmondsley. The village still has some reminders of its industrial past, including a colliery brass band. Craghead United F.C., a defunct association football club, was based here. Also in Craghead there are many public houses including the Punch Bowl. Craghead is also well known for its wind farm which sees two wind turbines on a hill known as the Craghead Windmills.

Holmside Hall is an early 19th-century farmhouse and equestrian centre at Holmside, Burnhope, County Durham, England. The farm is built on the site of a medieval manor house which until 1570 was the home of Robert Tempest (High Sheriff of Durham in 1561). The family lost the manor by confiscation following his attainder for his part in the Rising of the North in 1569. The site contains the remains of a medieval moat and the farm outbuildings contain walls and fragments of the medieval manor house. The farmhouse and outbuildings are Grade II listed buildings and the whole site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Holmside New Hall, sometimes known as Little Holmside, is a nearby 17th-century house one time home of the Whittingham family.

Holmside Hall Wind Farm is a wind farm near Stanley, County Durham, England. Owned and operated by E.ON UK, the farm has a nameplate capacity of 5.5MW, containing two NM80 turbines each rated at 2.75 MW.At the time of construction, which was delayed due to high winds, the turbines were the largest and most powerful in the UK.

Holmside is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated to the north-west of Sacriston. The village has a 5.5 MW wind farm, Holmside Hall Wind Farm, which became operational in May 2004 and consists of two 60 m (200 ft) high wind turbines.

No Place is a small village near the town of Stanley in County Durham, England, east of Stanley and west of Beamish. Situated to the south of the A693, it is home to an award-winning real ale pub, the Beamish Mary Inn (dating from 1897 and originally known as the Red Robin), and lies near the Beamish Mary coal pit. The local church is known as the "Tin Chapel".

The West Stanley Pit disasters refers to two explosions at the West Stanley colliery (variously known as West Stanley pit or Burns pit). West Stanley colliery was a coal mine near Stanley, with the mine opening in 1832 and closing in 1936. Over the years several seams were worked through four shafts: Kettledrum pit, Lamp pit, Mary pit and New pit. In 1882 an underground explosion killed 13 men and in 1909 another explosion killed 168 men.

Fox & Parrot Wood is a broadleaf woodland in County Durham, England, about 4 miles (6 km) west of Chester-le-Street. It is situated just north of the B6313, near the village of Craghead. The wood forms part of the Great North Forest, which is one of England's community forests, and is adjacent to Twizell Wood, which lies to the north. Fox & Parrot Wood was originally planted in 1998 as part of a joint project between the Woodland Trust and the Forestry Commission. Further planting took place in 2004. It now covers a total area of 13.4 hectares (33.1 acres) and is owned and managed by the Woodland Trust. As with other Woodland Trust woods, it is freely open to the public, with five access points.The forest was named after Dr Fox, a local GP in the 1950s, who was known for his pet parrot.

Stanley is a former colliery town and civil parish in County Durham, North East England. Centred on a hilltop between Chester-le-Street and Consett, the town lies south west of Gateshead. Stanley was formerly divided into three distinct settlements – the main town of West Stanley and the mining villages of East Stanley and South Stanley. Through a process of gradual expansion, these have become amalgamated into one town, with East and South Stanley no longer officially used as town names (although they are still recognised colloquially). The civil parish of Stanley was created in 2007 and takes in not only Stanley, but the villages of Annfield Plain, Tanfield, Craghead, Catchgate, Tantobie, Tanfield Lea, South Moor, White-le-Head, Bloemfontein, Clough Dene, Greencroft, Harelaw, Kip Hill, The Middles, New Kyo, No Place, Oxhill, Quaking Houses, Shield Row, and West Kyo. The current parish covers the vast majority of the former Stanley Urban District Council area, with the exception of Dipton and Burnopfield.

South Stanley is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated immediately to the south of Stanley.

North Durham Academy is a secondary school with academy status based in Stanley in County Durham, England. The school was formed in September 2011, when Greencroft Business and Enterprise Community School and Stanley School of Technology formally merged. It opened its new £30 million campus in September 2013, but was not officially opened until March 2014 by the Duke of York, KG.In 2013 and 2015, Ofsted inspectors rated the academy as 'requires improvement'.

Beamish was a railway station which served the village of Beamish in County Durham, North East England, from 1894 to 1953. The station was built by the North Eastern Railway on the Beamish Deviation Line off of the earlier Stanhope and Tyne Railway.

Beamish, previously named 'Pit Hill', is a village in County Durham, England, situated to the north east of Stanley. The village is contained within Hell Hole Wood and is home to Beamish Museum, an open-air museum seeking to replicate a northern town of the early 20th century. Its principal public house is the Shepherd and Shepherdess, near the Beamish Museum entrance. To the south is the village of No Place (also called Co-operative Villas). North West Beamish lies in the conservation area of Beamish Burn. To the north of Beamish, Pockerley Manor preserves a rare though altered example of a pele tower in County Durham, probably dating from the 15th century with later alterations and additions. It is attached to a later farmhouse and the building is now known as Pockerley Manor. The tower has living accommodation built over a stone basement, the first floor reached through a stair built into the thickness of the wall, and the roof is largely original.