News, events & publications
NEXT MEETING
Bowburn Local History
invites you to an open meeting
about
Bowburn Schools
A summary of 113 years of formal education in Bowburn
(in Wylam Street, Surtees Avenue and now Crowtrees Lane)
will be followed by the sharing of memories
by those who attended these schools
at
Bowburn Community Centre
Monday, 18th July 2022
starting at 7pm
(All welcome – Please bring your memories and any photographs or other memorabilia of Bowburn Schools!)
Admission free but donations welcome
Meetings
Bowburn Local History Society (LHS) organises various meetings to which everyone is welcome.
All normally take place at Bowburn Community Centre but these were cancelled at the start of the Covid10 pandemic.
They are starting again in 2022 but some meetings will be on-line. See below for how to join Zoom meetings.
Meetings in 2022
Monday 14th February:
David Butler,
Durham County Records Office:
"Great Pains and a Large Amount of Labour": the Building of Durham Viaduct
Zoom meeting*, starting at 7pm
Monday 14th March:
Mike Syer, Bowburn LHS:
Fatal Accidents at Bowburn Colliery
Zoom meeting*, starting at 7pm
Monday 11th April: Jack Turton, Coxhoe LHS:
Asylum: Winterton in words and pictures.
Bowburn Community Centre, starting at 7pm
All welcome. Admission free but donations welcome
Monday 16th May: AGM and members’ evening:
Family history? How and where people lived and worked locally? What are your local history interests?
Bowburn Community Centre, starting at 7pm
Monday 13th June: Members meeting
Planning further activities of Bowburn LHS
Bowburn Community Centre, starting at 7pm
New members welcome
Monday 18th July – Bowburn Schools
A summary of 113 years of formal education in Bowburn
(in Wylam Street, Surtees Avenue and now Crowtrees Lane)
will be followed by the sharing of memories by those who attended these schools.
Bowburn Community Centre, starting at 7pm
All welcome. Admission free but donations welcome
[No meeting in August]
Monday 12th September – My Life with The Doors, by Jimmy M !
Jimmy McGrath: “30 years working at Henderson’s Garage Doors”
(P. C. Henderson was one of Bowburn’s biggest employers after the closure of Bowburn Colliery.)
Bowburn Community Centre, starting at 7pm
All welcome. Admission free but donations welcome
Monday 10th October – The Changing Face of Bowburn
as shown on old maps and aerial photographs
Bowburn Community Centre, starting at 7pm
All welcome. Admission free but donations welcome
Monday 14th November – Crowtrees Tilery
Richard Annis, Senior Archaeologist, Durham University,
will describe what was discovered about Bowburn’s 19th century brick and tile works
by the dig in 2019.
Bowburn Community Centre, starting at 7pm
All welcome. Admission free but donations welcome
* For Zoom meetings, please e-mail bowburnlhs@gmail.com for the link or the Meeting ID and Passcode.
History & Heritage Room
Bowburn LHS has a room in Bowburn Community Centre which is dedicated to the history and heritage of the area.
Books, maps, photographs and artefacts of local historical interest have been collected here – thanks to donations that are being added to all the time – for the use of local research and interest.
Visitors are normally welcome every Wednesday, 1pm–3pm, or at other times by appointment.
Covid19 has changed this for the time being.
Please e-mail bowburnlhs@gmail.com to find out latest arrangements.
Publications
Our latest book, “Early Years of a Pit Village”, is now on sale.
With 394 pages, it lists hundreds of events in, or affecting, the village of Bowburn up to and including the year 1930.
Copies of the book are available, priced £5, from the History & Heritage Room in Bowburn Community Centre (when open – see above), or e-mail bowburnlhs@gmail.com or leave a message at the Community Centre for other arrangements.
Please add £3 for post & package, if books cannot be collected.
Cheques should be made payable to “Bowburn Local History Society”.
We are grateful to Bowburn & Parkhill Community Partnership and to the Co-operative Community Fund for funding this publication.
Without that, it would not have been possible to publish this book at this low price.
(The sources of information included in “Early Years…” are not included in the book itself, to save space.
They can be found, however, elsewhere on this website: “Early Years…” sources.)
Calendars
Our main source of income for several years came from the sale
of an annual calendar, with a picture of local history interest for each month.
Some back copies of these are still available.
However it has now been decided to publish them on-line.
See: Bowburn Local History Society calendars.
We ask everyone to respect the copyright on many of these photographs.
Guided Walks
Bowburn LHS has presented a number of local guided walks,
as part of the County Council’s Countryside Service regular programme.
(See also Local history walks)
Website
Recent additions to this website include
Transcriptions of local entries in the National Register 1939
This listed every resident in the UK, with addresses, dates of birth and occupations, on 29th September 1939.
See: Local censuses etc. (These entries were updated in November 2019.)
Added in October 2019 is a selection of Electoral Registers.
The most recent addition (January 2021) is a collection of calendars published by Bowburn LHS.