Monk Hesleden is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 5,722. The parish is situated to the north-west of

Hartlepool Hartlepool ( ) is a seaside resort, seaside and port town in County Durham, England. It is governed by a unitary authority borough Borough of Hartlepool, named after the town. The borough is part of the devolved Tees Valley area with an estimat ...

, and is on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

coast. Monk Hesleden village is situated a short distance to the south of High Hesleden. The parish has an area of and includes the villages or hamlets of

Blackhall Colliery Blackhall Colliery is a village on the North Sea coast of County Durham, in England. It is situated on the A1086 road, A1086 between Horden and Hartlepool. To the south of the Blackhall Colliery's Catholic church is Blackhall Rocks. Built aro ...

Blackhall Rocks Blackhall Rocks is a village on the North Sea coast of County Durham, North East England. It is situated on the A1086 between Horden and Hartlepool, and just south of Blackhall Colliery which it adjoins. It is sometimes referred to colloquiall ...

, Crimdon, Hesleden, High Hesleden and Monk Hesleden. It has a parish council.

Etymology and history

Hesleden is believed to be derived from the local word ''Dene''(den) meaning a deep forested Valley, and ''Hesle'' a corruption of Hazel, so the original meaning may have been, ''"Forested Valley of the Hazel trees"'', which are common in the Nesbit, Crimdon and Hesleden Denes, that border the village. As for the "Monk", that may either refer to the Church which, once existed, or perhaps some earlier

monastic Monasticism (; ), also called monachism or monkhood, is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual activities. Monastic life plays an important role in many Christian churches, especially ...

foundation. Or that more likely, the lands around it may have once belonged to the

Bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city in north east England **County Durham, a ceremonial county which includes Durham *Durham, North Carolina, a city in North Carolina, United States Durham may also refer to: Places ...

. This had been a common feature, throughout the

Palatine A palatine or palatinus (Latin; : ''palatini''; cf. derivative spellings below) is a high-level official attached to imperial or royal courts in Europe since Roman Empire, Roman times.

, before the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. The

Prince Bishop A prince-bishop is a bishop who is also the civil ruler of some secular principality and sovereignty, as opposed to ''Prince of the Church'' itself, a title associated with cardinals. Since 1951, the sole extant prince-bishop has been the Bis ...

s, later

Bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

s, had an

Archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...

ry in nearby Easington, and it is recorded that a great deal of land in the area lay under their ownership. The Church of St. Marys, at Monk Hesleden can be dated as far back as the 13th century, though by the time it was photographed in the 19th century, it had been greatly altered, giving the impression, externally at least, of a much later structure, almost Georgian in style. For a long time, St. Marys' was the only local church, until the construction of St. James at

Castle Eden Castle Eden is a village in County Durham, England, south of Peterlee, Wingate, Hutton Henry, the A19 and Castle Eden Dene. The former Castle Eden Brewery was home to Castle Eden Ale. Etymology Castle Eden takes its name from the Eden Bur ...

, in the 1760s. Even with the advent of the collieries at Blackhall, Hesleden, and

Horden Horden is a village and Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward in County Durham, England. It is situated on the North Sea coast, to the east of Peterlee, approximately 12 miles south of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, S ...

, for a great deal of time, St. Mary's was the only local

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church, and with

, the only local cemetery, so despite the village's dwindling population, the church had survived. Unfortunately the church received some minor vandalism in the 1960s, and the council demolished the structure, leaving us today with only the Graveyard and a post, somewhat like a

tombstone A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The us ...

, marking the site. Despite the disappearance of the church, the parish lives on in name, and following the reorganisation of parishes in the 1980s, included the churches of St. James at Castle Eden, St. Andrew's at Blackhall, St Marys in

, St. Cuthbert in

Peterlee Peterlee is a town in County Durham, England. It is located south of Sunderland, north of Hartlepool, west of the Durham Coast and east of Durham. It gained town status in 1948 under the New Towns Act 1946 ( 9 & 10 Geo. 6. c. 68). The act als ...

, and St Johns Church at Hesleden. In 2016, St. James, Castle Eden was closed. Monk Hesleden now sits within the new geographical parish of Castle Eden and Blackhall, with the one remaining parish church at St. Andrew's in Blackhall. On the first

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

Maps, the village appears under the name of "Church Hesleden", and in fact it is High Hesleden, that has the name of Monk Hesleden. Today only one cottage (once part of a row of cottages, as you enter by the one road, into the village), Smiles-Taylor Farm, the former Rectory, as well as a couple of more recent bungalows, are all that remain of the village.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in County Durham Civil parishes in County Durham