St Leonard's

The current site of St Leonard’s school has a remarkable and contrasting history. For centuries it was the place of public execution in Durham, before becoming a comfortable family manor for one of the most notorious coalmine-owners from 19th Century Durham, and finally a school from 1936.

St Leonard’s Chapel and Hospital

Adjacent to the school site there was a medieval hospital and chapel dedicated to St Leonard. The earliest recorded date for the foundation is 1292. As well as looking after the sick and elderly, the foundation of St Leonard’s would have also ministered to prisoners. St Leonard is the patron saint of prisoners, and historical records show that those executed were buried in the grounds of the chapel of St Leonard. The remains of the chapel are marked on the 19th Century maps as next to the Garden House public house, and in the 1920s, houses were built over the chapel site and the houses contain the name ‘St Leonard’s’. When the Garden House was extended in the 1920, the building work had to be paused as they discovered human remains.

The chapel to St Leonard is marked on the 1595 map of Durham City.¹ The chapel is between what is now North Road to the west and Framwellgate Peth to the east. The site of St Leonard’s chapel is at the north-west edge of the map.

Medieval and Tudor Times

Public executions were conducted on the crest of the hill leaving Durham to the north in Medieval and Tudor times. Four recusant Catholic priests, Edmund Duke, Richard Hill, John Holliday and John Hogg were executed in 1590. St John Boste was executed on 24^th July 1594. An eye-witness account by Christopher Robinson gives the detail of John Boste’s gruesome execution.²

The building work in the 21st century on the current St Leonard’s site have yielded no evidence of human remains; this is to be expected as the historical record attests to the place of execution and burial as being two separate places. Sometimes a claim is made that the place of execution and burial was on the site Dryburn hospital. There is no evidence for this and when Durham Archaeology department carried out work on this site in the early 2000s no evidence of human remains were found, further strengthening the Gallows Field and the current St Leonard’s site as the place of execution.³

The Gallows Field

The current site of St Leonard’s school is listed as ‘Gallows Field’ on the 1838 Framwellgate Tithe map⁴ and has the strongest claim as the site of execution of the ‘Dryburne Martyrs’ in 1590 and St John Boste in 1594.

The Gallows are also marked on the 1675 ‘road map’ of London to Barwick.⁵ The gallows are on what is now referred to as Framwellgate Peth, before the road rises over moorland to ‘Durrommoor’. The name is preserved today in roads directly north of the hospital site and the rising moors on the map below most likely mark the rising terrain on the current hospital site.

Tithe Map

A new prison was opened in Durham in 1816 and public executions were moved into the environs of the prison. The name and location of the original site of execution are preserved on the 1838 Tithe Map which lists field 468, the Gallows Field, on the exact location where Springwell Hall was later built.

The map also shows the meeting of North Road and Framwellgate Peth, following the same pattern as the current roads. Where the two roads meet a small building marks the site where the current Garden House / Cartologist pub resides.  There is a public house marked in the same location on the Ordnance Survey map published in 1861, named ‘The Woodsmen’. 

Part Two: The story continues as the Gallows Field is turned into a very comfortable residence for a notorious Victorian Mine Owner: LINK

1. A Plan of Durham City, 1595: Mirador Mirador Viewer ↩︎
2. Records Volume 1: Miscellanea 1 by The Catholic Record Society – Issuu, page 85. ↩︎
3. Hospitals: St Leonard, Durham | British History Online ↩︎
4. Framwellgate Tithe Apportionment, 1838: Mirador Viewer, Framwellgate Tithe Map, 1838:Mirador Viewer ↩︎
5. Road from London to Barwick, John Ogilby, 1675, Mirador Viewer ↩︎