Place:Washington, Tyne and Wear, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Washington is a town in the City of Sunderland district of Tyne and Wear, England. Historically part of the ceremonial county of County Durham, it is the ancestral settlement of the Washington family, which George Washington descended from.

It is located between Chester-le-Street, Gateshead and Sunderland. Washington was designated a new town in 1964 and became part of the Borough of Sunderland in 1974, the borough became a city in 1992. It has expanded dramatically since its designation, by new villages created and reassignment of areas from Chester-le-Street, to house overspill from surrounding cities. At the 2011 census, Washington had a population of 67,085, compared to 53,388 in 2001.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Old Hall

The Old Hall may have been built by William de Hertburn, who moved to the area in 1183. As was the custom, he took the name of his new estates (Wessyngtonlands), and became William de Wessyngton. By 1539, when the family moved to Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire, the spelling "Washington" had been adopted.

The present Hall is an early 17th-century small English manor house of sandstone. Only the foundations and the arches between the Kitchen and the Great Hall remain of the original house.

Dame Margaret's Hall

Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell and his wife Margaret, grandparents of Gertrude Bell, lived in Washington New Hall on The Avenue. After Margaret's death in 1871, Sir Isaac set up an orphanage in the house, named Dame Margaret Home in his late wife's honour. It later became a Dr Barnardo's home until World War II. After the war, it was taken over by the National Coal Board as a training centre. It is now a private residence.

Building the New Town

Washington's design was developed through the New Towns concept aiming to achieve sustainable socio-economic growth. The new town is divided into small self-sufficient "villages". It was originally also divided into the 15 numbered districts, a fate that confused many visitors to the area. These numbered districts have gradually been removed as well as increased, and now road signs indicate the villages' names instead of district number.

Washington's villages are called:

• Donwell
• Usworth (originally Great Usworth)
• Concord
• Sulgrave
• Albany
• Glebe
• Barmston
• Biddick
• Washington Village (the original village and location of the Old Hall)
• Columbia
• Blackfell
• Oxclose
• Ayton
• Lambton
• Fatfield
• Harraton
• Rickleton

Mount Pleasant was also added to the list of numbered districts (14), despite being out of the Town "boundary line" of the River Wear and having a DH4 Postcode (Houghton le Spring); however, it does hold a Washington dialling code starting 0191 415/416/417.

Built on industry, Washington contains several industrial estates, named after famous local engineers, such as Parsons, Armstrong, Stephenson, Crowther, Pattinson, Swan and Emerson.

A lot of the land that makes up the town was purchased from the Lambton family, Earls of Durham who own the estate of the same name, which includes their ancestral home, Lambton Castle.

In 1970, Washington hosted the English Schools Athletic Association (ESAA) annual National Championships, attended by the then Lord Lieutenant of County Durham.

On 15 November 1977, the very first SavaCentre hypermarket (a venture between Sainsbury's and British Home Stores) opened at The Galleries. By 2005, however, it had been rebranded as a traditional Sainsbury's as the SavaCentre brand was phased out.

The former Court House on Liberty Green has now been converted into private residences.

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