Sockburn Hall, Darlington: an archaeological ... - English Heritage

Summary
In the early months of 2007 English Heritage undertook an analytical field survey and
commissioned a geophysical survey within the peninsula bounded by the River Tees at
Sockburn, in the modern borough of Darlington. Together these surveys recorded a wealth of
archaeological remains throughout the parkland and gardens surrounding the 19th-century
Sockburn Hall and the nearby ruins of All Saints’ Church. The majority of the remains, visible
as earthworks, relate to a post-medieval mansion and garden and perhaps to an earlier
medieval hall, which served as the seat of the powerful Conyers family until late in the 17th
century. The surveys also recorded changes in the landscape brought about by the Blacketts,
subsequent owners of the manor, who relocated the principal dwelling on at least one occasion
prior to the construction of the present hall in 1834, and created the present parkland in
which the traces of these earlier activities survive.
The most pressing research questions at Sockburn, however, relate to much earlier periods of
occupation. Sockburn has long been identified as the likely location of an ecclesiastical centre,
containing a church of such importance that it was considered suitable for the consecrations
of a bishop and an archbishop in the late 8th century. It is also recognised for the remarkable
assemblage of late 9th- and 10th-century Viking sculptured stones collected from within and
around the ruined church in the 19th century and stored in the rebuilt Conyers Chapel. The
investigation was able to suggest the possible existence of some further features dating from
these early periods, but the main gain has been the opportunity to review existing evidence
and recent scholarship in the light of a better understanding of the topography and the
later evolution of the local landscape. On this basis it has been possible to illustrate how the
Anglo-Saxon and later Viking presence, the medieval manor, the post-medieval mansion and
the 19th century hall are stages in the varied and prolonged life of a key place, both central
and liminal, successively re-invented to take advantage of the river, the adjacent river crossing
known as the Sockburn Wath, and the special enclosed qualities of the peninsula.
ENGLISH HERITAGE Sockburn