High Westwood is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated a few miles to the north of Consett, near Ebchester and Hamsterley[1]. Once a thriving village, due to the local coalmining, it is now little more than a few private houses, and the former Westwood County Junior Mixed and Infant School is now a housing complex where the houses are named after the rows of colliery houses that were demolished in the early 1970s. There is also a row of 6 Bungalows which survived when much of the village disappeared. The school was built in 1879 and a huge centenary celebration was held in 1979. The school was closed in approximately 2003. Strangely there is still a popular and regularly used cricket pitch although the football pitch is now silent and the other ameneites have been overgrown and forgotten since the 1970s or earlier. The village which once clung to a coke works and a coal mine is now surrounded by countryside and the once railway line is now part of a country walkway. Like many small villages after the coalmines were shut, the village disappeared. In the nearby woodland you can still see deer, and beautiful glades of bluebells but the red squirrels have vanished over the last decade. Both Barn Owls and Tawny Owls are common along with a wide range of smaller wild birds.
Former warden of the Derwent Walk 1992-1994 Former resident from 1971-1991 Current residents from 1966 to present.
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