“Celebrating Excellence, Investing in the Future”. What are the Awards?The Durham City Freemen Apprentice Awards recognise apprentices who demonstrate outstanding skills, excellence, knowledge, and commitment to their chosen trade within the City of Durham. Why nominate?• Celebrate your apprentices’ achievements and raise the profile of your business.• Shine a spotlight on the quality of training […]
Durham City Remembrance was I believe the best we have produced for Durham City, and this is in no small part due to financial and logistical support of many people and organizations in and around Durham such as yourselves.
TWO time-served craftsmen, whose working lives followed different courses, discovered they unwittingly shared a common bond shortly before being sworn in as freemen at November’s Guild Day in the Town Hall Gary Wilkinson, who became a member of the Joiners’s Company, has been a key player in the multi-million-pound rescue of the Durham Miners’ Hall […]
I’m excited to share some highlights from the recent major restoration of Durham Town Hall. As many of you know, the town hall closed in November 2024 to allow for an extensive programme of repairs and conservation—part of a broader initiative that originally began during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020–21. This vital work included a […]
A GREAT grandmother, believed to be the oldest woman freeman in Britain, has died peacefully just days short of her of her 104th birthday. But her trip was brought about by pure chance – the result of a north east ancestry search carried out by her son Ian, a Durham University graduate. During the trawl […]
SENIOR members of Durham City Freemen will this year take part, for the first time, in a country-wide event celebrating England’s “fantastic heritage and culture.” Wardens and deputy wardens, from the freemen’s eight surviving craft guilds formed at the end of the Middle Ages, will be available across four days in mid-September will meet members […]
THE world of high finance and artistic exercise, performed within a loop suspended from a ceiling, are unlikely bedfellows. But they both feature in the life of insurance specialist Daryl Metcalf – the freemen’s latest new recruit, where she joins dad Alan in the Cordwainers’ Guild Thirty-one-year-old Daryl, born in Esh Winning and educated at […]
Photographer Geoff Kitson had to be quick on his feet to capture a unique three-generational family picture when his grandson Tom was sworn in as a Durham City Freemen. Getting Tom, wife Sheila, son Leighton, daughter Alison, son-in-law Adam and brother Steve, as well as himself into the frame, posed few problems for a man […]
Courtesy of the Daily Telegraphy SIR PAUL NICHOLSON, who has died aged 86, was the last family chairman of the Sunderland-based Vaux brewery until its demise at the hands of City investors; a leading figure in north-eastern business and civic life, he was also Lord-Lieutenant of County Durham. Vaux (pronounced “vorks”) quenched the thirst of […]
Alan Ribchester, who was 79, lived all his life in Durham and was married to Gina. The couple have two sons, Richard and Robert, and four grandchildren. Until his retirement Alan headed a chartered accountancy practice now based on Belmont Business Park and employing four partners, one of them son Robert, along with a staff […]