BRANDON and BYSHOTTLES form a township in the civil parish of Brancepeth, and comprises the colliery villages of Brandon, Langley, Littleburn, Browney, New Brancepeth and Waterhouses, with a number of widely scattered farms, and has a station at Brandon Colliery on the Sunderland and Barnard Castle branch of the North Eastern railway, also stations at Sleetburn and Waterhouses on the Durham and Deerness Valley branch. It reaches from 2 ½ to 5 miles south-west from Durham, is 3 miles from Sedgfield and 262 from London, and is bounded on the north-west by the river Deerness. Brandon and Byshottles was formed into a Local Government District by the Act, 40 & 41 Viet. c. xxvii. (1877) and is divided into three wards, east, centre and west; the west ward is, for ecclesiastical purposes, a separate parish; the centre and east wards were constituted a separate parish, December 18, 1877, by Order in Council, under the name of the District Chapelry of St. John the Evangelist: the board consists of nine members: it is in the Mid division of the county, union, county court district and petty sessional division of Durham, and in the rural deanery, archdeaconry and diocese of Durham. The church of St. John the Evangelist, erected in 1875, is a building of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of spacious chancel, nave, organ chamber and a small shingle spire containing one bell: in the chancel are sedilia, and the tracery of the larger windows is beautiful: there are 400 sittings. The grounds around the church are neatly laid out. The registers date from December, 1877. The living is a vicarage, gross yearly value from the Eecclesiastical Commissioners £300, with residence, in the patronage of the rector of Brancepeth, and held since 1878 by its first vicar, the Rev. Joseph Lawson M.A. of Bishop Hatfield Hall, Durham. In connection with, St. John's church there is a cemetery, with mortuary chapel, at the village of Brandon. There is a Catholic School chapel at Langley Moor, with priest’s residence attached, in which service is held on Sundays; also the following chapels: Wesleyan, erected in 1876, with 200 sittings; Methodist New Connexion, built in 1876, 250 sittings; and Baptist, erected in 1882, 100 sittings; also Primitive Methodist at Brandon Colliery, erected in 1873; and at Langley Moor, built in 1874, with 250 sittings; and a small one of wood at Browney Colliery. There are Literary Institutes and Reading Rooms, well supplied with the local papers &c. at Langley Moor and Brandon Colliery, the latter erected in 1872. The collieries are extensively worked in this township; sanitary pipes, fire brick and building bricks are made here. Viscount Boyne is lord of the manor and the principal landowner. The soil is various, principally loam and gravel, but is some parts clay; subsoil the same. The chief crops are all kinds of cereals and pasture. Acreage, 6,683: rateable value, £44,355; and the population in 1881 was 10,850, owing to the collieries worked here by Messrs. Strakers and Love, the North Brancepeth Colliery Co. and the New Brancepeth Colliery Co. Collieries are also worked by Messrs. Bell Brothers Limited and Pease and Partners Limited.

Schools

Church of England, Brandon village.

Brandon Colliery (mixed), built in 1874, for 560 children; average attendance, 529.

Browney Colliery (mixed), built in 1882, for 520 children-; average attendance, 260.

North Brancepeth Colliery (mixed), rebuilt in 1883, for 500 children; average attendance, 480.

New Brancepeth Colliery, built in 1873, for 350 children; average attendance, 270.

Waterhouses, British (mixed & infants), built in 1863, for 230 boys & girls & 120 infants; average attendance, 210 boys & girls & 90 infants.

St. Patrick’s, Littleburn, built in 1878, for 300 children; average attendance, 150.