Witton-le-Wear (GB)
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Witton-le-Wear is a small village in County Durham, North East England. It is situated on the north bank of the River Wear, 3.7 mi to the north-west of Bishop Auckland.
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The place name Witton or Whitton is fairly common in the north of England. While the name can mean "white farm", in the case of Witton-le-Wear Witton refers to a farm (Anglo-Saxon: ton) in or near woodland (Anglo-Saxon: widu). Witton-le-Wear's name is attested as Wudeton from 1104, but had become Wotton in Werdale by 1313. This subsequently evolved to the present form.
The farming hamlet of Witton-le-Wear was part of the Witton Castle estate, which was bought in 1816 by Sir William Chaytor for £78,000 from the Stobart family. He redeveloped the castle, and in 1819 developed the Jayne Pitt as part of the large Witton Park Colliery complex.
This brought about the development of transport into the area, including the Etherley Incline Railway by George Stephenson, that connected to the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) at Shildon, and hence onwards via Stockton to Newport on the River Tees. After the S&DR was extended into Bishop Auckland, the railway was able to access the limestone deposits within the upper River Wear valley. This brought employment to the valley through both mining, as well as production of both pig iron and cement, which was distributed by the railway to all parts of the United Kingdom.
As the price of road haulage dropped, the railway fell into disuse and carried its last train in the early 1990s. Over recent years the Weardale Railway has been reinstated by the British American Railway Services (BARS) and is again used to transport locally mined opencast coal to Scunthorpe and Ratcliffe Power Station. The line is also run as a heritage railway, operating on many weekends and holidays by Weardale Railway Trust in conjunction with the BARS, and provides a tourist route in and out of Weardale. A weekend halt has been provided at Witton-le-Wear since early 2013. Witton-le-Wear's last village shop closed in 1998, meaning the village's only permanent amenities are its two public houses, The Dun Cow and the Victoria.
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