Sedgefield Heritage Trail
You are at the site of the Almshouses (16)

The two shops built into the bank below the church yard all all that remain of a row of buildings which ran the full length of the church yard. They included Coopers Almshouses which were built as a single-storey block of brick cottages in 1703 to house deserving old people. Thomas Cooper was a surgeon who bequeathed money for this purpose. Towards Cross Hill there used to be an endowed school founded in 1596 for poor children. A replacement school, which also housed the village gaol, was erected in 1826, but that too has been demolished.