Dukes Cottages and Wall in Front

A group of six estate cottages, now four dwellings, dating to circa 1840 and built for the Duke of Northumberland. They are situated in the Seaton Valley, fronting Front Street in Backworth. Restored in 1980 by J.& D. Darbishire for the Tyne and Wear Building Preservation Trust. The cottages are constructed of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings, with some rubble stone used in the ground floor between each pair. They have Welsh slate roofs, stone gable copings, and are arranged as one storey and an attic. The design incorporates a yard entrance bay, with two bays for each house. Boarded doors are set within stop-chamfered surrounds in the outer bays, and paired between the inner houses. Stone-mullioned casement windows have splayed surrounds and steeply-sloping sills, and are found in the remaining bays, as well as in gabled half-dormers. A sash window is located in the gabled dormer over the vehicle entrance. Three ridge chimney stacks feature conjoined shafts. A wall of rubble sandstone with roughly dressed round stone coping runs in front of the cottages.