A rural reinvention (From Living Northeast)

A rural reinvention

11:21am Monday 23rd March 2009 in

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The number of stylish homes and businesses springing up in Derwentside bears witness to its ability to shake off its industrial past. Tony Kearney and Gavin Engelbrecht report.

WITH its rolling hills and wild moors, Derwentside is becoming one of the new places to be. The scars inflicted on the landscape by its industrial heritage have all but healed and the north Durham region is turning into an increasingly affluent commuter belt.

With Consett and Stanley lying within an easy 30 minute commute of Newcastle and Durham, criss-crossed by picturesque walkways and boasting a new breed of executive housing, the area’s growth continues apace.

Consett remains the district’s centre of population, having sprung from a population of less than 150 living in a handful of scattered farmhouses clinging precariously to a bleak hillside before 1840.

It was the discovery of iron ore that turned Consett into a Victorian boom town. Thousands of immigrant workers and their families huddled beneath the towering chimneys which belched smoke and the infamous “red dust”, which turned the snow pink.

For generations, Consett was synonymous with steel; its furnaces produced the girders which made up Blackpool Tower, the plates which protected Britain’s submarine fleet and the structure of Sydney Harbour Bridge – a tradition which came to a shuddering halt in 1980.

Today, that industrial legacy has been all but obliterated.

The site of the steelworks is now 600 acres of green fields, executive houses and out-of-town shopping.

Modern sculptures on the cycle track recall that industrial heritage, and a giant crucible which once poured molten steel lies at the entrance to a commuter estate.

But the most visible monument to the past is the truly magnificent Hownsgill Viaduct – Gill Bridge, as it is known locally – a 12-arch, 700ft span which once carried trains laden with Stanhope limestone over a steep ravine.

Now it carries cyclists and walkers 175ft above the valley floor.

Across the district, Stanley retains monuments to its past – a pit wheel marks the site of County Durham’s worst mining disaster in 1909, while Causey Arch is the world’s oldest surviving single-arch railway bridge. Here too, the legacy of mining is largely confined to the nearby Beamish Museum, and the landscape now is possibly the most underrated landscape in the North. Winter or summer, it is staggeringly beautiful.

Stanley stands 700ft above sea level while Consett, the highest sizeable town in County Durham, is a little loftier at 800ft, right on the edge of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with wild moorland stretching beyond the horizon, the River Derwent cascading down through its steep-sided valley all the way from the fells above Blanchland down to the Tyne.

Rights of way include the Derwent Walk, Waskerley Way and the Coast-to-Coast route, so the valleys and moors are now easily accessible. That natural beauty – combined with the availability of some extraordinarily good-value housing – has played a major part in transforming Derwentside.

According to the latest Government figures, an average of 800 people a year are abandoning congested Tyneside for the slower pace of life in County Durham, many of them choosing Derwentside.

That drift has seen the district halt its emigration, which saw the population fall by more than 10,000 in the 1980s, and has fuelled a phenomenal rate of housebuilding.

The old back-to-backs can still be found in Consett town centre, or the old pit villages surrounding Stanley, but a new breed of executive housing is springing up everywhere.

The impressive Beamish Rise development, which stands proudly on the hill top at the eastern edge of Stanley with a spectacular view over Beamish Museum, gives a clue to the new-found popularity of the district.

Alongside 12 executive apartments, the development is made up of three-storey, three-bedroom townhouses, which went on the market for as little as £199,000.

At the opposite end of the district, a fabulous new development has grown up straddling the River Derwent at Shotley Bridge.

On the Northumberland bank of the river is Bridge Island, where it is still possible to pick up a three-storey, three bedroom townhouse for something in the region of £250,000 to £270,000 – perhaps as much as £100,000 less than an equivalent house in the middle of Durham City with the same standard of luxury.

Facing Bridge Island on the Durham side of the Derwent is a development of individual houses and apartments, including converted mill buildings created by the Shotley Bridge swordmakers, who practised their secret craft on the banks of the river after arriving from Germany in the 17th Century.

Derwentside now has pockets of real affluence: the stone farmhouse hamlet of Iveston, home to former England cricket captain Paul Collingwood and Newcastle United president and businessman Bob Young; the village ofMedomsley, the attractions of which were recently trumpeted on the TV show Location, Location, Location; as well as long-established house price hot-spots like Tanfield, Ebchester and Lanchester.

Both of Consett’s biggest supermarkets have given a vote of confidence in the town and its emerging spending power by announcing major expansion plans, with Tesco planning a 60,000sq ft hypermarket to rival its flagship Hexham store.

At the other end of the scale, Edward and Rachael Jewson have just opened a farm shop and cafe, next to their family farm at Knitsley, on the outskirts of Consett.

The couple have converted 240-year-old farm buildings, including a former cow byre and turnip shed, into Knitsley Farm Shop and Granary Cafe.

The shop is currently doing a roaring trade in organic vegetables; beef, lamb, pork and mutton fresh from the next-door farm and other local produce, ales from Northumberland, desserts from Durham and biscuits produced in a farmhouse kitchen down the valley in Satley.

After two years of planning and another two years of design and construction, the shop and cafe opened in November – just as the economic downturn began to bite.

Edward, a 37-year-old who is the sixth generation of his family to farm at Knitsley, says: “I felt it was a great risk. To be honest, I think we still perceived Consett as being a little bit behind the times, but we were advised we would make a loss in the first year, break even in the second and maybe make a profit in the third, but we were in profit within the first month.

“Consett has undergone rapid change in my lifetime, particularly in the last 15 years. It has got itself out of its industrial past and has evolved at an incredibly fast pace.”

Nowhere is that evolution more evident than in Shotley Bridge. In recent months, the village has seen the restaurant Salle Pepe expand and open a new continental cafe-bar, there is a new high quality gift shop and a new bridal shop is set to open.

John and Naomi Foy opened the upmarket deli Savilles of Shotley Bridge in the same week as Knitsley Farm Shop. The couple, who moved north with their four children and four dogs from Wiltshire six years ago, decided to open the shop after the demise of the village store last year.

But as well as supplying villagers with mundane staples such as bread and milk, the couple sell an impressive array of delicacies. There are 30 different types of cheese: Valdeon Picos Blue, a Spanish cheese wrapped in maple leaves; Cornish Yarg, wrapped in nettles; as well as more local produce such as Reiver and Coquetdale, from Northumberland, and their biggest seller – Cotherstone, from County Durham.

“Every week has been an improvement on the last,”

says 43-year-old John. “We were very busy at Christmas and we thought that might be a fleeting thing and it would get quiet again, but that hasn’t happened. We hadn’t expected the cheese and the olives to go as well.”

The demand for more cosmopolitan food has also fuelled a noticeable improvement in Derwentside’s restaurant trade. Where only a few years ago, the district offered little more than pub grub, it can now boast a selection of superior eateries serving the more discernible palate.

Chief among them is The Pavilion, at Iveston, which is widely acknowledged as possibly the best Cantonese restaurant in the North-East and is a favourite haunt of politicians and Premier League football management. A Saturday night table is best ordered a month in advance.

King’s, which opened in Shotley Bridge in 2007, has an emerging reputation, along with Valentino’s, in Lanchester, while the ever-popular Derwent Walk Inn, at Ebchester, and the Old Mill, at Knitsley, are also highlyrated country pubs.

Running in parallel, the district has also seen substantial investment in the hotel trade, most notably the Royal Derwent at Allensford, a 48-bed hotel and restaurant with spa and pool on the Northumberland bank of the river.

Lamplight Arts Centre in Stanley has become a beacon for the arts with a multi-functional space managed by Leisureworks – the area’s trust for sport and the arts.

Lindsay Tuck, Chief Executive of Leisureworks, says: “Not only does the Lamplight celebrate Stanley’s heritage through its name (it comes from the area’s mining history), but it also offers a really versatile space for a wide range of art forms. I think the Lamplight, in conjunction with The Louisa Centre next door, will be a major catalyst in our bid to make Stanley a vibrant cultural hub.”

Stanley has plenty of welcoming establishments, too.

Just north of the town is the The South Causey Inn, taken over two years ago by Philip Moiser and his wife Susan.

The couple have completely renovated the building and last year became the proud winners of The Best Freehouse and Best Family pub in the North-East in the Great British Pub Awards 2008.

The Causey specialises in game such as rabbit and pheasant, with a big push on deer which is in surplus at the moment. It also gets fish from its own trout fishing lake, which re-opens to anglers in March. Attached is an equestrian centre and riding school, with 70 stables and 120 acres of land.

Also near Stanley is the Beamish Hall Country House Hotel. Built in 1268 it has been occupied by a number of local aristocrats from the Monboucher family to the Shaftos until 1949.

Following years of being used as a residential college and to house archives for Beamish Museum, the hall stood empty until August 2000.

In 2003 current owner David Craggs bought it and started a sympathetic restoration. Set in 24 acres of beautiful parkland, Beamish Hall is now a magnificent country house hotel, with 36 bedrooms, as well as a luxurious apartment – each room furnished with antiques.

The Ropes Activity Centre at Beamish Wild boasts the region’s newest highwire adventure course, while the Beamish Wild’s Bird of Prey Conservation Centre is dedicated to the preservation of all species of bird of prey.

Coming soon is the The Stables Bar and Restaurant.

Almost 750 years after Beamish Hall was built as a wedding present for the Guiscard de Charron, the stable block is being transformed into a pub, restaurant and microbrewery.

Yet another addition to the increasingly vibrant area of Derwentside.