Castleside

Castleside is a village in County Durham, England. It is situated a short distance to the south-west of Consett. Castleside is covered by the civil parish of Healeyfield.The village centre is located on the main A68 road which runs between Edinburgh and Darlington and the village crossroads allow easy access to Consett via the A692 to the east via Moorside, and the North Pennines and Stanhope via an unclassified road to the west via Waskerley crossing Waskerley Moor. To the northeast lie other small villages called Moorside and The Grove. Rowley sits to the south on the A68 and Allensford is situated to the north on the same road. Muggleswick is 3 miles to the north west as, a bit further at 5 miles, is Derwent Reservoir and Edmundbyers. The parish church, dedicated to St John, was designed by Ewan Christian and is a reproduction of a church he had seen and admired while on holiday in Switzerland. The church was consecrated on 7 March 1867. There was a Wesleyan Chapel at Watergate, Castleside, which was erected in 1805. The chapel was extended in 1877 and closed in 1970. A Primitive Methodist chapel was erected in 1843 on the Consett Road, and extended in 1884. It closed in the 1990s and is now a residence. In the nearby dwelling of Wharnley Burn is a 14th-century cottage and was home to the moss trooper Thomas Raw (d. 1714). He was buried in a field near his home believing he could not be buried in a church. In the early 1860s the grave was opened and the grave slab removed, supposedly to Satley. The dwelling shares the name with Wharnley Burn (also called Watergate Burn) that runs along the south west side of Castleside in a steep valley containing Castleside Woods. The burn or stream continues northwest before joining the River Derwent west of Allensford just after Wharnley Burn Waterfall. The A692 road to Consett, running north east, leads to the small villages of Moorside and The Grove. Moorside is a large post-World War II housing estate. It was originally…