About us

The current community centre was opened in 1987 after the old Mechanics Institute was closed as unsafe in 1985. The association continued activities around the town in the working men’s club, school halls, church hall and the Masonic hall whilst a fundraising committee, with the help of Durham Rural Community Council, now Durham Community Action set to to raise the funds to build the new centre.

They eventually raised over £230,000 including grants from local and National charities, Wear Valley District Council, Durham County Council with the largest grant coming from the Rural Development Commission. Local firms also helped with HJ Banks giving £15,000 and a similar gift in kind by excavating and levelling the site before building work started. The local community also worked hard raising over £10,000 from sponsored walks and events. This included an auction of donated goods that included a Robert’s radio donated by the Queen Mother and a red telephone box donated by BT.

The original building was a sports hall with a small meeting room kitchen and an office. We had to fundraise further to create a car park and further still to extend the meeting room. In 2004 we completed the current building with a 2 storey extension creating a computer suite, an upstairs meeting room and office. We also further extended the original meeting room to create a small suite of 3 offices for the Health Visitor and the district nursing team. This is currently occupied by Wearjammin CIC that runs a small recording studio. The front door then moved from Dans Castle to Ironworks Road. We completed this with the aid of a large grant from the European Regional Development Fund, The National lottery and more local and National charities. The extension cost was nearly £700,000. Substantially more than the original building.

We now run scheduled activities most days apart from Sundays but are open for bookings 7 days a week.

The Community Centre is owned and run by Tow Law Community Association a registered charity number 1122539 and Company Limited by Guarantee Company Number 06244260

The Mechanics Institute demolished in 1985 was established by Charles Attwood who built the iron foundry in Tow Law in the 1840’s and was really the founder of Tow Law.

The foundry workers had to pay 1 penny from their wages to help build it. It was an extensive building with a large hall and upstairs rooms and offices. It was well used but gradually deteriorated until it was demolished in 1985. We do have a portrait of Charles Attwood hanging in the main hall, a small portion of a larger portrait that used to hang in the main hall in the Institute. The Institute was sited on the bottom corner of the car park of the current Centre.

There was also a Social Centre in Tow Law at the bottom of Ironworks Road where the recreation ground is now. That was built in the 1930’s by local unemployed miners who were sponsored by the London Rover Scouts. That centre was opened by King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth in 1938. We think the original Community Association was established there and then moved to the Institute when the social centre was demolished in the 1960’s.

An extract from a small booklet entitled Tow Law the First 150 years written for the first History Exhibition we held at the Centre in the 1991 gives a bit more information about Charles Attwood and the Institute.