Ferryhill is a town in south-central County Durham, England with a population of around 10,000 people. It is in the borough of Sedgefield. The town grew in the nineteenth century and very rapidly in the 1900s around the coal mining industry, although the last mine closed in 1966. Ferryhill sits on the western edge of the Ferryhill Gap, a natural gateway in the Limestone Escarpment that outcrops on the Eastern Durham Plateau. The main settlement lies along the SW-NE ridge, with later development to the south of the ridge. Ferryhill lies on the medieval Great North Road which formerly was the A1, now the A167, which leads to Durham City and Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the North, and to Darlington in the south. The town grew dramatically as a mining town in the early 20th Century but before that it was an agricultural village. There was an agricultural settlement here in medieval times and maybe much earlier than that. Before the Reformation, Ferryhill belonged to the Priory of Durham and was a thriving agricultural concern. In 1539, the properties and rights were transferred to the Dean and Chapter of Durham. This did not affect the people of Ferryhill very much, but some yeoman families became quite prosperous and it is recorded that in 1615 a Lawrence Wilkinson was granted a personal Coat of Arms. During the English Civil War between Charles I and Parliament (1642 – 1648), Ferryhill was split, some men supporting the Royalists whilst others backed the Parliamentarians. The people of the village suffered from plundering and persecution as troops passed through. More on Ferryhill