Birtley, Durham

Historical Description

Birtley, a township, a village, and an ecclesiastical parish in Chester-le-Street parish, Durham. The township lies on the Team Valley railway, 5 miles S by E of Gateshead, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Chester-le-Street, and a station on the N.E.R. Acreage, 1429; population, 4175; of the ecclesiastical parish, 4612. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners are lords of the manor. Coal is worked, and there is a brine spring. The parish was constituted in 1850, and includes the hamlet of Birtley North Side, Brown's Buildings, Leybourne Hold, and Portobello. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Durham; value, £300 with residence. Patron, the Rector of Chester-le-Street. The church was built in 1848. There are Wesleyan, Primitive Methodist, and Roman Catholic chapels, and a literary institute.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Birtley from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Birtley)

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for County Durham is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Birtley are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers covering county Durham online:

• Hartlepool Mail
• Northern Echo
• Durham County Advertiser
• Teesdale Mercury