Newton Aycliffe is a town in County Durham, England.
Founded in 1947 under the New Towns Act of 1946, it is the oldest new town in the north of England.
It has a population of 29,000 people (source: Great Aycliffe Town Council, 2007) and is the largest town within the Sedgefield constituency.
Within a 10-mile radius are several towns and villages including Darlington, Bishop Auckland, Shildon and Heighington. To the south of the town is the village of Aycliffe. Newton comes from ‘New Town’.
Aycliffe Village is near to the A1(M) junction with the A167 (former A1).
Until 2009, it was in the borough of Sedgefield, based in Spennymoor. It was the largest town in the borough. Newton Aycliffe has since April 2009 been governed by the Great Aycliffe Town Council and the County Durham Unitary Authority.
Prior to the Newtown development, Aycliffe (originally ‘Acley’) was the site of a Saxon settlement. The name Acley came from the Saxon words: ‘Ac’, meaning oak, and ‘ley’, meaning ‘a clearing’. Aycliffe was the location of a church synods in AD 782 and AD 789. Another old name was ‘Yacley’. The town’s motto is Latin for “Not the Least, but the Greatest we seek”.
On the edge of the town is the Bishop Auckland to Darlington railway branch line which is part of the 1825 Stockton and Darlington Railway. George Stephenson’s steam locomotive Locomotion No 1 was placed on the rails close to Newton Aycliffe near to where Heighington station is.
The Great North Road passed (A1) through the town until 1969.