Embleton is a hamlet and former civil parish, now in the parish of Sedgefield, in the County Durham district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, in England, as well as the site of a medieval village and manor.[1] It is situated 3 miles (5 km) east of Sedgefield[2] and 4 miles (6 km) west of Hartlepool. In 1961 the parish had a population of 80.[3] The township was historically named "Elmdene", supposedly derived from the site's proximity to a woodland of elm trees which, at an earlier time, flourished in the bordering dene. A single farmstead now occupies the site which lies adjacent to the ruins of a small church (originally a manorial chapel of ease) dedicated to the Virgin Mary.[2]
From the 13th to the mid 16th century the manor was the seat of the Elmeden family who assumed the local name.[1] The village was one of nearly 1,500 medieval villages to be abandoned in the 14th century after the collapse of the demesne system of land management.[4] It afterwards passed in the female line to the Bulmers and Smythes and in the 18th century to the Tempests of Wynyard, ancestors of the Marquesses of Londonderry.[5]
Embleton Tower is a Grade I listed Peel tower in the village, which previously incorporated the vicarage.
Embleton was formerly a township in the parish of Sedgefield,[6] from 1866 Embleton was a civil parish in its own right,[7] on 1 April 1983 the parish was abolished and merged with Sedgefield.[8]
