Virginia Estate
The War Years
The houses on Virginia Estate were built by the MOD around 1947 to house the families of RAF personnel based at RAF Middleton St George.
Durham Tees Valley airport existed as RAF Station Goosepool at the start of WWII and was subsequently renamed as RAF Middleton St George in 1941. From 1943 until the end of the war the airport became host to the Royal Canadian Air force who flew bombers across the North Sea. At the end of the war the airport was taken over by the RAF and there was a subsequent need for permanent accommodation for the families of service personnel. Virginia Estate was originally built to house the families of enlisted servicemen whilst the nearby Oak Tree Estate housed the families of officers.
Grounded
The RAF left the airport in 1963. In 1965 it was renamed to Teesside International Airport and converted to civilian use. Virginia Estate continued to be used until the mid 1980s by service personnel who were based at Catterick Garrison. In a public sale the local borough council was snubbed when the estate was sold in its entirety to First State Holdings.
Privatisation
First State Holdings carried out renovations on the estate and then proceeded to sell off the properties to private owners. Darlington Borough Council were asked to adopt the common land, roads, footpaths and sewers but refused on the grounds that they didn’t meet current building standards. In the mid 1980s three detached houses were built in The Spinney. The bungalows in Denver Drive were built in the late 80s. A vacant plot in The Spinney was built on in the 90s. In recent years there have been two developments of properties in garden land.
A Private Estate
As an unadopted estate, the management of the common land was carried out by Virginia Estate Management (Teesside) Ltd who collected fees from residents in order to finance the estate’s upkeep. Virginia Estate Management (Teesside) ceased trading in 1992.
Wildlife
Our estate was built in the late 1940's and as such has large open areas, something not often seen on newer builds. These open spaces combined with thick maintained hedges and our wooded copse means that we are lucky in the amount of wildlife that also makes the estate their home.
We have smaller mammals present in good numbers such as grey squirrels, hedgehogs and pipistrel bats which you can often watch catching insects when the swifts have gone to roost.
As expected we also have a wide variety of birds, from the tiny wren to woodpeckers to crows.
Residents report sightings of Goldfinches, Blue tits, Chaffinches, Long tailed tits and Yellow hammers, and many more.
To encourage our smaller birds many of the mature trees have a nest box and whilst as an estate we do not set up bird feeding areas, many of our residents regularly feed the birds in their gardens.
We also have an abundance of berries from the Hawthorn hedges and other trees and shrubs planted around the estate.
We also operate a No Mow May to help insects awaking from their hibernations.