| Phoenix Row | |
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Phoenix Row
Phoenix Row shown within County Durham |
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| OS grid reference | NZ166293 |
|---|---|
| Shire county | County Durham |
| Region | North East |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Darlington |
| Postcode district | DL14 |
| Police | Durham |
| Fire | County Durham and Darlington |
| Ambulance | North East |
| EU Parliament | North East England |
| List of places: UK • England • County Durham | |
Phoenix Row is a tiny village of about 30 houses in County Durham, in England. It is situated a short distance to the north of Low Etherley and a few miles west of Bishop Auckland. It was built on the abandoned line of George Stephenson's original Etherley Incline railway, designed to haul coal by static steam engine from the Witton Park collieries to join the locomotive-driven section of the Stockton & Darlington Railway at Shildon in 1825. As such it has a largely unrecognised importance in railway history.
The hamlet of Phoenix Row had a Methodist Chapel and its own cricket team which played at the New Inn Fields. At one time almost all the houses were reputed to be occupied by just three families, the Watsons, Grays and Stubbses.
In the 1960s Phoenix Row was threatened with the dreaded Category "D" notice, a death sentence for many post-industrial County Durham villages. However the determined villagers fought the Category "D" notice tooth and nail. Showing remarkable community spirit, they united under the banner of PRIDE (the Phoenix Row Improvement & Development Effort) and succeeded in getting the threat lifted, modernising their homes and saving their village for future generations.