In a message dated 05/06/2004 22:31:03 GMT Daylight Time, widdowfield9255@yahoo.com writes: I looked up Gilpin House on Google, and found a Gilpin House in Houghton. In the website there was no mention of it still being a school. Can anyone give me some history of it being a school in 1858. James Widdowfield was married to Mary Dixon. . While I don't know much about Gilpin House as such, I do know that at that time there were several fairly small and short-lived boarding schools in Houghton le Spring. They were living in the reflected glory of, and "cashing in" on the reputation of, the Kepier Grammar School, a very good and more substantial Boys' Boarding School, which was well funded and had originally been a mediaeval church foundation. The Gilpin School seems to have tried to create a spurious church association by taking its name from Dr Bernard Gilpin, a 16th/17th-century Rector of Houghton le Spring, who was thought extremely highly of in Co Durham, as one who not only preached in an age when that had gone out of fashion, but did so to the ordinary working man, making what would later have been regarded as "Wesley-style" tours around the Pennine Dales. . . An examination of the 1851, 1861 etc censuses and of local Trade Directories, should reveal the numbers, sizes and other details of, those Houghton le Spring schools. . . As you will have seen from Google, there is now an "Independent Living Unit" (Old Peoples' Home?) in Houghton le Spring, called "Gilpin House". I have no real idea but would guess that it is either in the same old building (extended?) or else at least on the same site as the original Gilpin House. . . Geoff Nicholson . 57 Manor Park, Concord, WASHINGTON, Tyne & Wear NE37 2BU Ask for details of NBL/DUR family history research in depth by THE local expert, working for YOU.