Low Coniscliffe

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Low Coniscliffe
County Durham

West end of village
Location
Grid reference: NZ250140
Location: 54°31’14"N, 1°36’50"W
Data
Population: 716  (2011)
Post town: Darlington
Postcode: DL2
Dialling code: 01325
Local Government
Council: Darlington
Parliamentary
constituency:
Sedgefield

Low Coniscliffe is a village in County Durham, on the north bank of the River Tees, which is the county's southern border. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 Census was 716.

The village is confined in practice between the A1 and A67 roads, and the river. The village has the probable site of a mediæval manor house. There was once a gallows in the village.

History

Coniscliffe Grange Farm

A foundling was abandoned on 31 January 1602 on the window ledge of a house in Nether Cunsley which was occupied by Cuthbert Smith. The child, who lived for 69 years until 21 December 1671, was baptised Tychicus, with no surname.

The inhabitants of Thornton Hall were associated with Lowe Coniscliffe.[1] Sir Francis Bowes, who was born in 1648 and became High Sheriff of Northumberland, lost most of his family during his lifetime and left a memorial to them in the parish church at High Coniscliffe.[2] In 1848 the village had 134 inhabitants.[1]

In 1762 the village had a turnpike gate. The 1891 census recorded in Low Coniscliffe 'Coniscliffe Grange', 'Dublar Castle' and 'East Farm', and there was a 'Badle Beck Inn', which is probably the current Baydale Beck Inn.

Scouts and Cubs picnicking at Broken Scar, c.1920

Scouts and Cubs used to come to the banks of the Tees near here in the 1920s for picnics.

The village was not badly affected by the flooding of 2007, but lost power for one morning.

In 1993, a rare fungus Rhodotus palmatus was found nearby.[3]

Just to the east of the village is Tees Cottage Pumping Station, a Victorian pumping station now opened as a museum containing a 1904-built rotative beam engine, and a 1914 gas engine, believed to be the largest working preserved example in Europe.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Low Coniscliffe)

References