Spennymoor

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Spennymoor

Coordinates: 54.70° N 1.59° W
Population	17,241 (2001) [1]
OS grid reference	NZ261340
District	Sedgefield
Shire county	County Durham
Region	North East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SPENNYMOOR
Postcode district	DL16
Dial code	01388
Police	Durham
Fire	County Durham and Darlington
Ambulance	North East
UK Parliament	Bishop Auckland
European Parliament	North East England
List of places: UK • England • County Durham

Spennymoor is a town in County Durham, England, standing above the Wear Valley approximately seven miles south of Durham. The Town Council area, which includes the villages of Kirk Merrington, Byers Green and Tudhoe, has a population of approximately 20,000.

Like much of the Sedgefield district, it has suffered severe economic depression since the decline of the coal mining industry. Local schemes funded by the Single Regeneration Budget are aiming to re-establish the area as a location of economic competitive advantage.

The main attractions in Spennymoor are the local leisure centre, and Jubilee Park. Jubilee Park, or the Victoria Jubilee Park to give it its full name, was given to the people of the town, as its name suggests, by Queen Victoria to celebrate the jubilee of her reign, and is sited on land which was once part of the Shafto Estate. A Millenium Arch, similar to many erected throughout the length and breadth of the country, was erected in the park.

The leisure centre houses a swimming pool, and offers; swimming lessons, football coaching, martial arts tutoring, tennis lessons, badminton practice, a gymnasium and gymnastic workouts, and is also home to a new 'state of the art' Regional Gymnasium Centre,made possible by funding from the National Lottery, Sport England and Sedgefield Borough Council, and is amongst the most modern in the country. It is hoped that it be be the birth place of a new era in Olympic competition, and a training ground fro future gymnastic champions.

There are also plans for a new Regional Arts Centre to be added to the Leisure Centre, which stands at the junction of High Street and Cheapside in the town centre.

Tudhoe Cricket Ground was the victim of a rogue V1 flying bomb during the second world war. The bomb was possibly aimed at Manchester, in which case it travelled over a hundred miles North East of its target, though other sources say that the bomb was intended for the docks at nearby Hartlepool, and this seems far more likely. Whichever it was, the blast was powerful enough to make a crater, still visible today, in the cricket ground, and blew out the windows of surrounding houses (including those of the local St. Charles' Church) as well as shaking a great many other buildings.

Town motto: Spe Nemo Ruet - With Hope No-One Shall Fail

Anne Wood, creator of the Teletubbies was brought up in Spennymoor.

1 Whitworth Hall
2 The Spennymoor Settlement
3 Durham Big Meeting
4 External links
- 4.1 Local Arts and Artists

[edit] Whitworth Hall

Dating from 1183, The Whitworth estate was owned by and home to the Shafto family for over 300 years, including County Durham MP "Bonnie Bobby Shafto", made famous by the well known ballad and nursery rhyme. It is now the site of Whitworth Hall Hotel and the deer park for which the estate is famed is still well tended, as is the walled garden.

[edit] The Spennymoor Settlement

A local arts community founded in the 1930s by Bill & Betty Farrell with the aid of the Pilgrim Trust, "To encourage tolerant neighbourliness and voluntary social services and give its members opportunities for increasing their knowledge, widening their interests, and cultivating their creative powers in a friendly atmosphere". The Settlement was home to the towns first Library, and amongst famous local people who were a part of its history were Norman Cornish, 'the pitman painter. and Shildon born writer Sid Chaplin.

[edit] Durham Big Meeting

A new banner was marched for the first time in the 2006 Durham Miners' Gala (The Big Meeting), representing 13 (former) local collieries. The banner was unfurled on the night before the Big Meeting, by MEP Stephen Hughes and long-time trade unionist Rodney Bickerstaff, General Secretary of the trad union Unison from 1995 to 2001. Its first outing on the following day began with visits to 'The Tubs', a miners memorial made from tubs once used underground in Ellington Colliery, Northumberland, which honours the memory of all of the men and boys who lost their lives in the mines of Spennymoor and district, then went on to two war memorials, the main cenotaph outside the Leisure Centre, and a smaller memorial in Tudhoe Cemetary.