Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for WOLSINGHAM

WOLSINGHAM, a small town and a parish in Weardale district, Durham. The town stands on the river Wear, and on the Wear Valley railway, 10 miles NW of Bishop-Auckland; is a seat of petty sessions and county-courts; carries on the manufacture of woollen cloth, edge-tools, and agricultural instruments; does much business in connexion with neighbouring coal, iron, lead, and limestone works; is irregularly built; and has a post-office‡ under Darlington, a r. station with telegraph, a police station, a town hall of 1824, recently enlarged, a church rebuilt in 1848, but retaining a previous tower, three dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, an endowed grammar-school with £66 a year, charities £43, a weekly market on Tuesday, and nine annual fairs. The parish includes Towlaw and Towham, and comprises 20,403 acres. Real property, £17,947; of which £2,000 are in mines, £2,172 in iron works, and £400 in gasworks. Pop. in 1851, 4,585; in 1861, 5,531. Houses, 1,075. The increase of pop. arose from increase of employment at the Towlaw iron-works, and from the opening of new collieries. The property is much subdivided. The manor belongs to the Bishop of Durham; and a moated seat of the bishops was in W. Park. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Durham. Value, £900.* Patron, the Bishop of Chester. The vicarage of Thornley is a separate benefice.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Wolsingham CP/AP       Weardale RegD/PLU       County Durham AncC
Place: Wolsingham

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