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Sockburn is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Neasham, in the Darlington district, in the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It is situated at the apex of a meander of the River Tees, to the south of Darlington, known locally as the Sockburn Peninsula. Today, all that remains of the village is an early nineteenth-century mansion, a ruined church and a farmhouse built in the late eighteenth century.
Sockburn is known for its links with Lindisfarne and Celtic Christianity, the discovery of Viking Age hogbacks, the Sockburn Worm folklore, and Sockburn Hall, a 19th-century country house and a Grade II listed building.
The name means "Socca's fortification".
The Conyers family died out in the seventeenth century, and their manor house fell into ruin. The estate came into the hands of the Blackett family, industrialists from Newcastle upon Tyne. A new mansion, Sockburn Hall, was built around 1834 for Henry Collingwood Blackett and the church was closed and allowed to become dilapidated, presumably because the occupant wanted a fashionable picturesque ruin in his grounds. A bridge to the south of the house was built in 1836–7, although all that remains today are the abutments. A new church for the locals was built at his expense across the river at Girsby. In about 1870, Henry's widow, Theophania, erected another footbridge some way north of the house, to enable the faithful to access their church without using a ford near the house. The Northern Echo: Bridge over Troubled Water. Details the history of the building of Girsby Bridge. Accessed 02/05/2016
The Conyers family of Sockburn continued in America when Edward Conyers, son of Christopher Conyers of Wakerly and Mary Halford, left England on Governor Winthrop's fleet ship Lyons and landed at Salem Harbor on 12 June 1630. Edward Conyers changed his name to Edward Converse. He founded the town of Woburn, Massachusetts, established the first ferry service between Charlestown and Boston, and as organizer of the First Church of Charlestown was called Deacon Edward Converse. His grandson, Samuel Converse, was among the first settlers of Killingly, Connecticut where his house, built in 1712, still stands today.
Another literary association is with Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. His father was sometime rector at Croft-on-Tees, and it is said that the legend of the Sockburn Worm provided the inspiration for his poem Jabberwocky.
They were generally carved into curved shapes, and sometimes depicted scenes from [[Norse Mythology]]. One of the Hogbacks found at Sockburn may depict ''Týr'' and the mythological wolf ''[[Fenrir]]''. The vast majority of Hogbacks found in England are in the North of England, and of those the most significant finds
have been at Brompton, Northallerton (North Yorkshire) and at Sockburn.
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