Spennymoor

Coordinates: 54°42′N 1°35′W / 54.70°N 1.59°W / 54.70; -1.59

Spennymoor is a town in County Durham, England. It stands above the Wear Valley approximately seven miles south of Durham. The town was founded over 160 years ago. The Town Council area, which includes the villages of Kirk Merrington, Middlestone Moor, Byers Green and Tudhoe, has a population of approximately 20,000.

History

Earliest Days

The land on which Spennymoor now stands was once a vast expanse of moorland covered with thorn and whin bushes (Spenny Moor). The origin of the name remains somewhat uncertain - some believe it to be derived from the Latin "Spina" which means a thorn (possibly from the Roman influence at Binchester) and Mor which was the Anglo-Saxon word for a moor. C.E. Jackson, in his "Place Names of Durham, 1916", suggests a Scandinavian "Spaan" meaning shingle-hut and Anglo-Saxon combination involving "mar" - Spennymoor being the moor called after the shingle-hut erected thereon. Neither Britons nor Romans cultivated the moor, but on the site of Binchester, a village five miles to the south-west, the Romans built a camp around which grew up the settlement of Vinovium. The name Binchester is the usual Saxon corruption or adaptation of the Roman site name.

Spennymoor (UK Parliament constituency)

Spennymoor was a county constituency centred on the town of Spennymoor in County Durham. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.

History

The constituency was created for the 1918 general election, and abolished for the 1950 general election.

Members of Parliament

Election results

Elections in the 1910s

Elections in the 1920s

Elections in the 1930s

Elections in the 1940s

General Election 1939/40:

Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected;

References