Embleton, County Durham

Embleton is a hamlet, township and former chapelry, in County Durham, in England, as well as the site of a medieval village and manor.[1] It is situated 3 miles (5 km) east of Sedgefield[2] and 4 miles (6 km) west of Hartlepool. The township was historically named "Elmdene", supposedly derived from the site's proximity to a woodland of elm trees which, at an earlier time, flourished in the bordering dene. A single farmstead now occupies the site which lies adjacent to the ruins of a small church (originally a manorial chapel of ease) dedicated to the Virgin Mary.[2]

The ruined church in Embleton.

From the 13th to the mid 16th century the manor was the seat of the Elmeden family who assumed the local name.[1] The village was one of nearly 1,500 medieval villages to be abandoned in the 14th century after the collapse of the demesne system of land management.[3] It afterwards passed in the female line to the Bulmers and Smythes and in the 18th century to the Tempests of Wynyard, ancestors of the Marquesses of Londonderry.[4]

References
  1. Mackenzie, Eneas; Ross, Marvin (1834), An historical, topographical, and descriptive view of the county palatine of Durham, Volume 1, Mackenzie and Dent, p. 441
  2. Whellan (1856), History, topography, and directory of the county palatine of Durham, Whittaker and co., p. 520
  3. Hodgett, Gerald, (2006) A Social and Economic History of Medieval Europe, Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-37707-2, p.206.
  4. Robert Surtees, History of Durham, Vol.III, p.53

Further reading


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