Castletown, Sunderland

Castletown is an area of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear. A former mining community, the Hylton Colliery was located at the east end of the village, it lies north of the River Wear, and is near to Hylton Castle and Washington. At Hylton Riverside, on the eastern fringe of Castletown, there is a large retail park hosting stores such as Matalan, Staples and Pets at Home.

Also in the east of the area there is a large-scale redevelopment project, aimed at modernising the former pit houses and the area around the Aviary Estate.

At the opposite end of Castletown, there is the newer development of Fulford Grange, which was the home of former Sunderland footballer Michael Gray. It is also home to Kieron Brady, another ex-Sunderland footballer.

Currently, the records state that Castletown is the least ethnically diverse area in Sunderland, with 99.3% of the population being white.

During the search for the Yorkshire Ripper, the accent of "Wearside Jack", the author of a hoax letter claiming to be from the Ripper, was identified by the forensic linguist Stanley Ellis as that of the Castletown area.[1] The hoaxer was eventually revealed to have come from nearby Pennywell.

Despite its proximity to Sunderland, until 1965 this colliery village was under the administrative control of Durham County Council and was part of the Washington Urban District Council.This was probably because it was a fairly isolated community until the extensive council house building of the fifties at Town End Farm and Hylton Castle effectively "joined" it to the rest of Sunderland's other suburbs.