West Boldon

The elder of the two Boldons

West Boldon is thought to be the original settlement from which East Boldon later split, and appears, simply as "Boldon," in the 1183 Boldon Book — Bishop Hugh du Puiset's survey of the Bishopric of Durham's lands, the first of its kind north of the Tees. The 1183 entry records twenty-two tenants working the land under strict, itemised obligations to the Bishop: rent, oats, hens, eggs, and days of labour each week. Laid out as an irregular cluster without a village green, West Boldon had its own parish church by the late 13th century and remains a quiet residential village between Sunderland and South Shields today.