Monk Hesleden - Izeria

Monk Hesleden is a village and civil parish in County Durham, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 5,722. The parish is situated to the north-west of Hartlepool, and is on the North Sea coast. Monk Hesleden village is situated a short distance to the south of High Hesleden. The parish has an area of 1,091.35 hectares (4.2137 sq mi) and includes the villages or hamlets of Blackhall Colliery, Blackhall Rocks, Crimdon, Hesleden, High Hesleden and Monk Hesleden. It has a parish council.

1. Etymology and history

Hesleden is believed to be derived from the local word Dene(den) meaning a deep forested Valley, and Hesle a corruption of Hazel, so the original meaning may have been, "Forested Valley of the Hazel trees", which are common in the Nesbit, Crimdon and Hesleden Denes, that border the village. As for the "Monk", that may either refer to the Church which, once existed, or perhaps some earlier monastic foundation. Or that more likely, the lands around it may have once belonged to the Bishopric of Durham. This had been a common feature, throughout the Palatine of Durham, before the Reformation. The Prince Bishops, later Bishops, had an Archdeaconry in nearby Easington, and it is recorded that a great deal of land in the area lay under their ownership. The Church of St. Marys, at Monk Hesleden can be dated as far back as the 13th century, though by the time it was photographed in the 19th century, it had been greatly altered, giving the impression, externally at least, of a much later structure, almost Georgian in style. For a long time, St. Marys' was the only local church, until the construction of St. James at Castle Eden, in the 1760s. Even with the advent of the collieries at Blackhall, Hesleden, and Horden, for a great deal of time, St. Mary's was the only local Anglican church, and with Castle Eden, the only local cemetery, so despite the village's dwindling population, the church had survived. Unfortunately the church received some minor vandalism in the 1960s, and the council demolished the structure, leaving us today with only the Graveyard and a post, somewhat like a tombstone, marking the site. Despite the disappearance of the church, the parish lives on in name, and following the reorganisation of parishes in the 1980s, included the churches of St. James at Castle Eden, St. Andrew's at Blackhall, St Marys in Horden, St. Cuthbert in Peterlee, and St Johns Church at Hesleden. In 2016, St. James, Castle Eden was closed. Monk Hesleden now sits within the new geographical parish of Castle Eden and Blackhall, with the one remaining parish church at St. Andrew's in Blackhall. On the first Ordnance Survey Maps, the village appears under the name of "Church Hesleden", and in fact it is High Hesleden, that has the name of Monk Hesleden. Today only one cottage (once part of a row of cottages, as you enter by the one road, into the village), Smiles-Taylor Farm, the former Rectory, as well as a couple of more recent bungalows, are all that remain of the village.

1. References


1. External links

Media related to Monk Hesleden at Wikimedia Commons

Nearby Places View Menu

823 m

High Hesleden

High Hesleden is a village in Monk Hesleden parish, County Durham, in England. It is situated a few miles north of Hartlepool, between Blackhall Rocks and Hesleden. High Hesleden is located mostly along one street, on one side of which lies the village green; there is a turn off (although difficult to recognise), for Monk Hesleden and there is a small country lane which takes you down to Crimdon.

Neighbourhood

Blackhall Rocks

Blackhall Rocks is a village on the North Sea coast of County Durham, North East England. It is situated on the A1086 between Horden and Hartlepool, and just south of Blackhall Colliery which it adjoins. It is sometimes referred to colloquially as "The Rocks". One of the earliest testaments to Blackhall Rocks is an Ordnance Survey taken of the Durham area from 1855-1857, where it is referred to as "Black Halls Rocks". The area was the site of the eponymously named Blackhall Rocks Hotel, a Temperance Hotel. The Hotel was converted into temporary accommodation by Easington (district) Council the 1940's, and was eventually demolished in the 1960's. In 1907, Blackhall Rocks railway station opened, primarily serving tourists wishing to visit the cave formations present along the coast of Blackhall Rocks. Adjacent to the station, a siding and coal depot supplied coal from Blackhall Colliery 1 mile north to the surrounding area. On 4 January 1960, the station was closed to passengers, and on 7 December 1964, closed indefinitely. Beginning in the 1920's, the population of Blackhall Rocks began to rise as nearby coal mining operations grew. In the late 1930s, the local council built a large council estate to the west of the coast road, around the road to High Hesleden. In the 1960s and 1970s, a series of new council houses were built to the east, between the coast road and the railway line.

Hotel Neighbourhood

Hesleden

Hesleden ( HEZ-əl-dən) is a village in County Durham, England, south of Peterlee. The name is a combination of Dene and Hesle, which is from "hazel". The combined population of the five communities making up the parish of Monk Hesleden was 5,722 at the 2011 Census.

Neighbourhood

1.9 km

Hart Bog

Hart Bog (grid reference NZ452354) is a 1.79 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in County Durham, England notified in 1968. SSSIs are designated by Natural England, formally English Nature, which uses the 1974–1996 county system. This means there is no grouping of SSSIs by Hartlepool unitary authority or County Durham, the relevant ceremonial county. As such Hart Bog is one of 18 SSSIs in the Cleveland area of search.