Norton, Durham

Historical Description

Norton, a village and a parish in Durham. The village stands on a hill, with a station on the Clarence and Stockton railways, 1½ mile N of Stockton; has an avenue of trees in its chief street; has also at its N end a large green, surrounded by well-built houses; was once a market-town; and has a post, money order, and telegraph office (T.S.O.) under Stockton-on-Tees. The parish includes the manor of Blakiston, and comprises 4653 acres of land and 11 of water; population of the civil parish, 3780; of the ecclesiastical, 3778. The manor belongs to the Bishop of Durham. Norton House is a chief residence. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Durham; net value, £490 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Chester. The church is cruciform and good; has a Transition Norman nave, an Early English chancel, and a central Norman tower; was made collegiate by Bishop de Carileph; and contains some stall-work, the mortuary chapel of the Blakistons, a very fine effigy of a knight, an altar-piece brought from a Benedictine convent on the Continent, and several memorial windows. The church was thoroughly restored in 1876. There are Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels, a Friends' meetinghouse, and an endowed grammar school. The grammar school has existed since 1600, and has £55 a year from endowment. Bernard Gilpin was vicar, and Christopher Middle-ton, who attempted in 1745 to discover the North-west passage, was a resident.

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 Norton from the following:

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

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Norton 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