Holmside Hall

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.

The Middles is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated between Stanley and Craghead.

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 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.

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

Quaking Houses is a small village near to the town of Stanley in County Durham, in England. It may have been originally settled by Quakers, but during the Industrial Revolution it developed into a mining village with traditional terraced houses. The Quaker origin is supported by the 1873 name for a mine with two shafts at the village called Quaker House Pit. However, an alternative origin is suggested by the following; the 1865 OS Map shows a farm called Quaking House to the north at Anniefield Plain and a colliery railway line ran past this farm branching to the village mine. This colliery railway line was called the Quaking House Branch Line. A colloquial name for the village was "banana goat island" perhaps reflecting the livestock kept in the extensive allotments and grazing area around the village. Accessible by road only from the main South Moor Road, the village is dominated by one large road, with large strips of terraced housing on either side, both facing outwards. The large road is divided into several different street names: Third Street and Foil Cloth Street, with Woodside Terrace and Fellside Terrace located at the west end. A large turning circle enables large vehicles, particularly buses, to change direction. A shorter road parallel to the large road once had two streets, First Street and Second Street. The Community Hall which opened in 1997 stands where First street was once situated and Second Street still remains. The original housing stock was tied property which passed to the National Coal Board following nationalisation of the coal industry. The properties in Fellside and Woodside Terrace were larger than the other properties and were originally occupied by people with "middle management" occupations in the mining industry. At one time at the bottom of Fourth Street stood a walled reservoir and at the top of the village on the fell in the woodland was a dam, both of which had been required for the mines in the area. The William Pit, colloquially known as the Billy Pit, and which, prior to nationalisation, was owned by the South Moor and Holmside Colliery Company [SM&HCC] stood near the reservoir. SM&HCC also operated a drift mine in the Stanley Burn valley to the north of Woodside Terrace.

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.

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.

Burnhope is a village and civil parish in County Durham, England. It is located in the Craghead valley on the opposite side to Stanley and has 1,564 inhabitants, as measured in the 2011 census. Burnhope overlooks Lanchester in the Browney Valley, roughly two miles to the west and Maiden Law is roughly two miles north. Holmside is roughly two miles to the south east.

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'.

South Moor is a village in County Durham, in England. It is located to the south-west of Stanley on the northern slope of the Craghead valley. It is a well-developed village, yet still semi-rural, containing a main street (Park Road) of around twelve shops which survive despite their proximity to the front street of Stanley and its Asda supermarket. There was a branch of Stanley Co-op at the bottom of Park Rd and a glove factory above it. On the opposite side in a walled garden stood the Colliery Offices for the district. A local meeting place for teenagers in the 1950s and 1960s was Boves café which had a jukebox and sold coffee and snacks. The proprietor also had an icecream factory around the back of the shop and vans travel about to this day selling to the public. The café is now home to an award-winning Indian restaurant The Monju Tandoori, which has been established since 1987. There is a local church, St. Georges at the bottom of South Moor and "The Woodland Tavern" once was the Miners Hall.

Oxhill is a small village in County Durham, in England. It is located to the west of Stanley, on the bottom of the hill which leads up to Annfield Plain. Down the hill to the north are East Kyo and Harperley. Oxhill contains very little: a few households, a pub called The Ox and the main nursery school for the Stanley area. Oxhill used to be the site of a major level crossing, allowing access from the former nearby Stanhope and Tyne Railway line to a shunting yard adjacent to nearby South Moor, where coal was loaded for transport to the River Tyne for export.