These three, supposedly bottomless pits also known as `Devil's Kettles' or `Kettles of Hell', have been the subject of numerous legends and superstitions. The pits are located at Oxen-le-Hall, in the south of the parish of Darlington (County Durham) .Many fabulous traditionary tales are told of them.
Said to have been created by a ferocious earthquake in 1179, locals may tell you that they are full of green, boiling sulphorous water. People and animals are alledgedly drowned or eaten alive by the Pikes and Eels that infest their waters. The Hell's Kettles are said to contain the souls of sinners. Some report that these people (and animals in some cases) can be seen floating in the pools when they are clear.
It is also said that the water is hot in consequence of reverberation ; that geese and ducks thrown therein have discovered subterraneous passages to the river Tees, etc. Harrison (I577) calls them "three little poles, w'ch the people call the Kettles of Hell, or ye Devil's Kettles, as if he should seethe soules of sinfull men and women in them; they adde also that ye spirits have oft beene harde to cry and yell about them."
In his description of the features, Longstaffe (1854) quoted a twelfth century annalist thus:
"In the reign of Henry II, the earth rose high at Oxendale, in the District of Darlington, (Oxendale is now Oxney flat) in the likeness of a lofty tower, and so remained from nine in the morning until evening, when it sank don with a terrible noise, to the terror of all that heard it, and being swallowed up it left behind a deep pit"
Many centuries ago the owner, or occupier, of the fields where the Hell-Kettles are situate, was going to lead his hay on the feast day of St. Barnabas (June 11), and being remonstrated with on the impiety of the act by some more pious neighbour, he used the rhymes :
Barnaby yea! Barnaby nay!
A cartload of hay, whether God will or nay.
when instantly he, his carts and horses, were all swallowed up in the pools; where they may still be seen, on a fine day and clear water, many fathoms deep.--Denham Tracts.
The pits once aroused the curiosity of people the length and breadth of Britain and were even visited by the writer and traveller Daniel Defoe, who dismissed them as `old coal pits'. This they certainly are not, as coal has never been mined in the Darlington area. The sinkholes are fed by artesian water and have been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for their ability to support a hard water "fen" flora .
Although Darlington is undoubtedly in the valley of the River Tees, it is its tributary, the little River Skerne that flows through the centre of the town which is truly the Darlington river. The Skerne rises in eastern County Durham to the north of Sedgefield near the former colliery village of Trimdon and flows south before joining the River Tees at Croft near Darlington, close to the site of the famous `Hell's Kettles' at Oxen-le-Field.
