IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
East Street, CHESTER LE STREET, DH2 3LN

View along this long terraced street. This ex-mining village consists mainly of a series of these streets, built for the miners in the early C20, before the Great War.

I am guessing that satellite is the only way of receiving digital TV in this small rural village. This is East Street, one of several similar terraces in Grange Villa.

A disused mine truck stands on a short section of rail and is now a feature in a small garden area of the ex-mining village of Grange Villa. The main road in the picture is Pelton Lane. On the right is East Street.

This is the route into Grange Villa from the east, coming from Pelton Lane Ends.

This stands on the bankside beside Pelton Lane, the main entrance to the village from the east. It commemorates the history of this little ex-mining village. The local pit was West Pelton Colliery, which stood just to the south of the village. The memorial consists of a couple of old winding wheels and a tub, as the little mining cars were called. Many of the local villages have similar installations.

This is the way into the village from the east, along Pelton lane. The bus from Chester le Street comes in this way also, hence the bus stops.

The blue and yellow sign explains that the District Council is working towards a better district - here in Grange Villa with a regeneration scheme of rejuvenation and traffic calming. The most obvious new features are the paving of the walkways, the many bollards and the period style street lighting.

This street must be named for the coronation of either Edward VII in 1902, or George V in 1911. I suspect it's the latter. The first houses in this old pit village were built in the 4th quarter of the C19, but most of the present village dates from the period between 1900 and the First World War. This view is along the main village street.

Two disused pit head winding wheels have been 'planted' to form a feature among the shrubs in a small public garden in the one-time mining village of Grange Villa.

This farm stands north of Pelton Lane, at the east side of Grange Villa. The farm gave its name to the ex mining village of Grange Villa, which was founded in the late C19 to house miners working at Handen Hold Colliery. The farm is shown on the 1861 First Series Ordnance Survey map. The layout on the map suggests an early Victorian planned courtyard farmstead, but I don't know its exact history. The farmhouse shown here seems to show quite a lot of modernisation.