Carlton, County Durham

Carlton is a village and civil parish within the borough of Stockton-on-Tees and ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It is situated a few miles to the north-west of Stockton-on-Tees, a short distance from the village of Redmarshall. Located within the village are Carlton Village Stores and [http://www.thesmithscarlton.co.uk "The Smiths"] , a family run bar/restaurant (previously the Smiths Arms). The Smiths features in the 2006 Good Beer Guide, selling Deuchars IPA and a guest beer, usually from a big brewer, which changes every few weeks. It is the only pub in the local villages to have retained a two room layout, with a separate public bar (including wide-screen, usually featuring music channels, unless sport is on) and a critically acclaimed restaurant.

Although subject to much new building in the past decade, the village still retains its medieval layout, with houses facing each other across the main street, and with strips of land in front and behind. This layout had been identified as Norman, probably dating to the rebuilding of the village after William's harrying of the North [ [http://sine.ncl.ac.uk/view_image.asp?digital_doc_id=610 Carlton aerial photograph] ] .

Famous resident

George Orwell resided at Greystone, the home of his wife Eileen's sister-in-law and about half a mile outside the village, from 1944-1945 [ [http://archive.thenorthernecho.co.uk/2003/6/23/87495.html Is this where Orwell created Big Brother?] ] . He moved there with Eileen and newly-adopted son, Richard, following bomb damage to their London flat. The then housekeeper, Mrs Blackburn, remembers Orwell reading in the garden or sitting in the bay window of the drawing-room reading or making notes. This room overlooked Whitton valley, made up of rural farmland with woodland in the distance, as well as the Whitton Bridge Pasture. It was here that Orwell finished his anti-Stalinist allegory "Animal Farm" before leaving for France as a war correspondent in 1945.

References

Indie band the lurios were born and bread in carlton.