Fatfield is a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Tyne and Wear

Tyne and Wear

Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in north east England around the mouths of the Rivers Tyne and Wear. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972...

, located in the City of Sunderland

City of Sunderland

The City of Sunderland is a local government district of Tyne and Wear, in North East England, with the status of a city and metropolitan borough...

 metropolitan borough, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It formed part of the Washington

Washington, Tyne and Wear

Washington is a town in the City of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, England. Historically part of County Durham, it joined a new county in 1974 with the creation of Tyne and Wear...

 new town

New towns in the United Kingdom

Below is a list of some of the new towns in the United Kingdom created under the various New Town Acts of the 20th century. Some earlier towns were developed as Garden Cities or overspill estates early in the twentieth century. The New Towns proper were planned to disperse population following the...

.

The housing style in Fatfield consists of centrally located attached council houses (known as white houses due to their colour) and privately owned detached houses located in quiet cul-de-sacs on the outskirts. Washington Arts Centre is also located in Fatfield.

The southern part of the village by the River Wear

River Wear

The River Wear is located in North East England, rising in the Pennines and flowing eastwards, mostly through County Durham, to the North Sea at Sunderland.-Geology and history:...

 is popular for country walks and the three public houses and working men's club that are situated on the banks of the river. The site of the original village is just to the west of the North Biddick Club. A school was originally built on the site of the old village, but was replaced by private housing several years ago.

Education

Fatfield Primary School is located on Southcroft and educates around 235 pupils aged 4-11. The school has Investors in People

Investors in People

Launched in 1991 Investors in People is a business improvement tool administered by UK Commission for Employment and Skills and supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills ....

 status and Artsmark

Artsmark

Artsmark is a national award scheme managed by Arts Council England. The scheme, that is open to all schools in England, recognises schools with a high level of provision in the arts.There are three levels of award:* Artsmark Gold* Artsmark Silver...

 and Healthy School awards. At their inspection on 14 June 2007, Ofsted rated the school as Satisfactory, point three on a four point scale.

Publicity

Fatfield had national publicity in the 1990s when the village was challenged to lose weight on the Fatfield Diet

Fatfield Diet

The Fatfield Diet is a calorie-controlled diet designed to induce healthy weight loss, created in the 1990s by British author and The Sun journalist Sally Ann Voak. The diet was originally devised for a serial feature on the BBC daytime television programme "Bazaar", in which an entire village was...

as part of a BBC television programme. Apart from the TV show, Fatfield is well known for the legend

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

 of the Lambton Worm

Lambton Worm

The Lambton Worm is a legend from North East England in the UK. The story takes place around the River Wear, and is one of the area's most famous pieces of folklore, having been adapted from written and oral tradition into pantomime and song formats....

 which is said to have terrorised the village.

Notable connections

• Bobby Thompson, comedian, was brought up here.
• Sir Harold Jeffreys
  Harold Jeffreys
  Sir Harold Jeffreys, FRS was a mathematician, statistician, geophysicist, and astronomer. His seminal book Theory of Probability, which first appeared in 1939, played an important role in the revival of the Bayesian view of probability.-Biography:Jeffreys was born in Fatfield, Washington, County...
  
  , FRS was born here.
• Alan Price
  Alan Price
  Alan Price is an English musician, best known as the original keyboardist for the English band The Animals, and for his subsequent solo work....
  
  , keyboardist for The Animals
  The Animals
  The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
  
  , was born here.