County Durham is one of the oldest and most cherished counties in the entire United Kingdom. There are far too many towns in this fabled area that meet the definition of quintessentially English but, if hard pressed, Bishop Auckland would do a fine and admirable job of meeting all the criteria. With a population of over twenty five thousand, Bishop Auckland is clearly a modern town that has all the amenities required of a city and its transportation system is topnotch. This allows it to relevant with today, which is a necessary factor when deciding on the most evocative English burgs. In addition, Bishop Auckland also has a long and significant history and it has been an indispensable part of Britain for countless centuries. Its importance is made evident in its name. Bishop Auckland is indelibly linked to the history of the famous Bishop of Durham.
Early in first years of the first millennium, Bishop Auckland didn't have a name and it was little more than a lovely piece of land. The king at the time was King Canute and he gifted this swath of land to the Bishop of Durham. This is where the word "Bishop" factors into the name of the town but the word "Auckland" is a bit harder to pin down. Conventional wisdom points to the fact that, in the old language, Auckland translated essentially into "extra land". This would definitely support the story and, at any rate, the fact remains that it was the Bishop of Durham who basically gave birth to the city that exists today.
Bishop Auckland grew healthily and steadily and it eventually became well known inside and outside of Durham. By the 1800s the population was already approaching two thousand. Little did the residents of the town know, though, that the entire world would be rocked in a short time by the Industrial Revolution. During this time railways began to pop up all over the continent of Europe and travel was vastly and undeniably altered forever. This allowed Bishop Auckland to become incredibly wealthy due to the fact that the surrounding land in Bishop Auckland was filled to the brim with some of the finest coal yet discovered. With railways it finally became financially feasible to undergo large scale mining operations and within a few short decades Bishop Auckland would be a completely different city. By the mid 1800s Bishop Auckland's population was fast approaching six thousand, more than double what it was at the start of the century. Forty years later the population doubled itself again, reaching fifteen thousand citizens by the turn of the twentieth century. Funnily enough, the population of the town actually started to dwindle after hitting this peak because of the decline of the coal industry. Despite this, one can still see gorgeous buildings and lovely streets in Bishop Auckland and most of these were made possible thanks to coal money. While coal mining is scarcely done in Bishop Auckland these days, one can't deny that the town wouldn't be the same were it not for the railways and mining operations.
| 
+44 (0)1388 834834
