Staindrop facts for kids
Staindrop is a village, civil parish, former ecclesiastical parish and manor situated east of Barnard Castle in County Durham, England. The population (including Cleatlam and Killerby) at the 2011 census was 1,310.
The village has one of the long greens typical of County Durham.
The oldest parts of the Church of England parish church of St Mary are Anglo-Saxon, built in the 10th or 11th century. The church contains monuments including effigies of members of the Neville family.
Raby Castle and its gardens are to the north of Staindrop. The village has a Spar shop and a post office.
About 3 miles (5 km) north-west of the village is Raby Old Lodge, a medieval tower house built probably for the Neville family of Raby Castle. It was restored in the 19th century and now used as holiday accommodation.
The Deanery is home to Major William Kemp Trotter, a former Deputy Lieutenant of County Durham, and his wife Mary Holcroft.
The village has a number of locally owned businesses including a local newsagent, the Cutting Room and a tea shop. It has a small industrial estate that is used by mainly local businesses such as joiners and plumbers.
Staindrop has two schools: Staindrop Church of England Primary School and Staindrop School (secondary). It has one pub, the Wheatsheaf Inn, which villagers commonly refer to as the "Top House".
The surveyor Jeremiah Dixon, who with Charles Mason calculated and laid out the Mason–Dixon line in North America, is buried in Staindrop. His unmarked grave is in the Quaker burial ground adjoining the old Friends' Meeting House. Thomas Pynchon's historical fiction novel Mason & Dixon mentions Staindrop as containing Jeremiah Dixon's favourite public house.
History
In about 1018 King Canute gave the manors of Raby and Staindrop to Durham Priory. In 1131 Prior Algar granted the manor to an Anglo-Saxon named Dolfin "son of Uhtred", the earliest recorded direct male ancestor of the great Neville family which built as their seat Raby Castle in the north part of the manor. The grant was possibly merely a confirmation of the holding by this family from before the Norman Conquest of 1066. When doing homage to the Prior for his holding he reserved his homage to the kings of England and of Scotland and to the Bishop of Durham and was "no doubt a man of consequence", probably an aristocratic Northumbrian of high birth. In February 1203-4 King John confirmed to the prior and convent all their privileges and vast possessions, including "Staindrop and Staindropshire with the church".
