Brancepeth Castle

Brancepeth is a village and civil parish in County Durham, in England. It is situated about 8 km (5 mi) from Durham on the A690 road between Durham and Weardale. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 414.

Brancepeth railway station served the village of Brancepeth, County Durham, North East England from 1857 to 1964 on the Durham to Bishop Auckland Line.

Page Bank is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated on the north bank of the River Wear to the east of Willington and to the north-west of Spennymoor.

Brandon Colliery railway station served the village of Brandon, County Durham, England from 1861 to 1964 on the Durham to Bishop Auckland Line.

Brandon is a village in County Durham, England. It is situated a short distance to the southwest of Durham. Brandon was originally one of the seven townships within the ancient parish of Brancepeth. It grew from a sparsely populated agricultural area into a populous mining district after the establishment of collieries and later coke and fireclay works. Until the 19th century Brandon village, formerly known as East Brandon, was one of the larger settlements in Brancepeth Parish.

Whitworth Hall Country Park is a parkland based set in 73 acres (300,000 m2) 8 miles (13 km) from Durham in England, which rests on the outskirts of the town of Spennymoor in County Durham. The park includes Whitworth Hall, a Grade II listed stately mansion (the ancestral home of Bobby Shafto an 18th-century MP) hotel, deer park, lake and Shafto's Inn. The park includes a Victorian walled garden which contains England's most northerly vineyard. The current building was rebuilt in the 19th century.

Brandon and Byshottles is a civil parish and electoral ward in County Durham, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 17,774 increasing to 18,509 at the 2011 Census. The parish includes Brandon, New Brancepeth, Broompark, Langley Moor, Ushaw Moor, Meadowfield, Waterhouses and Esh Winning. Unusually, the parish shares jurisdiction over a quarry south of Esh Winning, with the neighbouring parish of Brancepeth. For electoral purposes the parish is divided into wards; Central Ward (includes Brandon) - elects four parish councillors East Ward (includes Langley Moor) - elects three parish councillors North Ward (includes New Brancepeth) - elects three parish councillors South Ward (includes Meadowfield and Browney) - elects three parish councillors Ushaw Moor Ward (includes Ushaw Moor and Broompark) - elects four parish councillors West Ward (includes Esh Winning and Waterhouses) - elects four parish councillorsCurrently, a majority of the Councillors were elected as Labour Party candidates. Brandon & Byshottles was established as a local government unit when it was also established as a Local Board District in 1882. Brandon & Byshottles was reconstituted as an Urban District through the Local Government Act 1894. The Brandon & Byshottles Urban District Council was abolished in 1974 when the area became part of the (now abolished) City of Durham local government area. The Brandon & Byshottles Parish is co-terminous with the pre-1974 UDC area.

Whitworth Hall which stands in Whitworth Hall Country Park, near Spennymoor, County Durham England, is a country house, formerly the home of the Shafto family and now a hotel. It is a listed building. Descendants of the Shafto family of Shafto Crag, Northumberland, served as Aldermen, Mayors and Sheriffs of Newcastle upon Tyne in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1652 Mark Shafto, Recorder of Newcastle, purchased the manor of Whitworth. His son Robert, knighted in 1670 was Recorder from 1660 and his grandson was High Sheriff of Durham in 1709. Two sons of Mark Shafto junior represented Durham City in Parliament: Robert Shafto 1712/3 and 1727/30 and John Shafto 1729-42. John was the father of Robert Shafto, better known as Bobby Shaftoe, who vastly increased the family fortune by his marriage in 1774 to Anne Duncombe of Duncombe Park. Their son Robert Eden Duncombe Shafto, (also Member of Parliament for Durham City and later High Sheriff in 1842), who married Catherine Eden, daughter of Sir John Eden Bt of Windlestone Hall, replaced the old manor house with a new mansion in 1845. The house was substantially destroyed by fire and all that now remains of the 1845 rebuild is the detached library wing. The present two-storey seven-bayed house dates from the rebuild of about 1900. Branches of the Shafto family had seats at Bavington Hall, Beamish Hall and Windlestone Hall. Whitworth Hall Hotel & Deer Park is now privately owned and operated as a hotel and wedding venue.

Brandon United Football Club is a football club based in Brandon, County Durham, England. They are currently members of the Northern League Division Two and play at the Welfare Ground.

Byers Green is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Spennymoor, in the County Durham district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, England. It is situated to the north of Bishop Auckland, between Willington and Spennymoor, and a short distance from the River Wear. It has a population of 672. Byers Green Hall has been the home of the Trotter family since the 15th century.Thomas Wright, (1711–1786) a famous 18th-century astronomer, architect and mathematician was born and died here. Wright was educated in King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland before being apprenticed to a clockmaker in the town. By 1734, after various adventures, Wright had progressed to making a huge working model of the universe (an orrery) for an aristocratic London patron. This set him on his remarkable career that included the first accurate description of the Milky Way. Professor Harold Orton, (1898–1975) a noted 20th-century linguist and English dialectologist was also born here. Harold Orton was the son of a schoolmaster at Byers Green and attended King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland followed by Merton College, Oxford. His 1933 book The Phonology of a South Durham Dialect, based on the dialect of the area, was re-published by Routledge in 2015.Sir Percy Cradock, GCMG, (1923–2010) a senior British civil servant, was born in Byers Green. He was educated at Alderman Wraith Grammar School, Spennymoor followed by St John's College, Cambridge, where he read law. Having trained as a barrister Cradock joined the Diplomatic Service and during his career held a number of senior diplomatic posts, including Ambassador to China. Later in his career he was labelled by the media as the 'UK's most senior spy' because he chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee (UK) under Margaret Thatcher's government. Cradock died in London on 22 January 2010, aged 86. It is not known whether there was a village at Byers Green in the Anglo-Saxon period. The village name is quite late; it was first recorded in 1345 as Bires. It is probably the exact equivalent of the modern word 'byres'. The village name thus means '(the green by the) cowsheds'. Byers Green remained a farming area throughout the medieval period and into the 16th and 17th century. Most people would have worked on the land.

New Brancepeth is a village in County Durham, in England. It is about 3 miles (5 km) west of the centre of Durham, above the River Deerness. Its population is around 100–200. It is about 2.5 miles (4 km) north of Brancepeth village. It was the pit village for New Brancepeth Colliery.

Whitworth was a civil parish in County Durham, in England, centred on Whitworth Hall. It was one of several parishes abolished in 1937 to create the parish of Spennymoor. Whitworth Hall (now a hotel) is on the road between Spennymoor and Brancepeth, and is close to Tudhoe. The house was in former times the home of the Shafto family, whose most famous member (from the 18th century) was Bobby Shafto, subject of a famous English nursery rhyme.