Our Town

Houghton-le-Spring is a former mining town on the edge of Sunderland heading out to Durham, with a population of approximately 12,000. Houghton boasts a proud history, gaining its standing first through farming, then through mining. Back in mining times, it was a thriving centre for a number of pit villages, with cinemas, ice cream parlours, tailors shops and all manner of grocery and hardware stores. Today, it is on the rise again with a busy shopping centre, a range of offices, an industrial estate and numerous residential areas. Former mining and quarrying sites have been regenerated into nature reserves and much of the area consists of open countryside.

The history of Houghton-le-Spring is centred around St Michael and All Angels church and the much loved figure of Bernard Gilpin (1517-1583), known as ‘the Apostle of the North’. Renowned for his dedication to spreading the Christian Gospel in the North East and for his generosity to the poor, Bernard Gilpin established the first school in Houghton and regularly used to keep the inhabitants from starvation by roasting an ox and sharing out food to those in need.

To this day the town commemorates Bernard Gilpin’s generosity in the ‘Ox Roast’, a central part of the annual ‘Houghton Feast’, a week-long town festival that features a mini Edinburgh-style tattoo, a carnival with floats, bagpipe competitions, and a huge range of arts, crafts, musical and drama activities.