Thank you very much for your reply. I was especially interested as you cited Bowburn as an example. I have been looking for material on scheme houses for quite some time, my husband[the family computer expert] has looked for possible sites for me and even bought me a copy of Moyes "Mostly mining" at Christmas because it mentioned them. Never a word from him about Bowburn scheme houses although he went to Bowburn Junior School and his mother's family had lived there for most of the twentieth century. At present he is doing his final session of the academic year in Sweden but when he gets back you can be sure that he will be thoroughly teased about it.

For now I will e-mail his cousin at Ferryhill to see if she remembers anything  and next time we come up to visit her we can swing by Bowburn to look for surviving examples. 

If you recollect anything else about the financing or any other aspects of the scheme houses I would be very interested as it seemed to be a very good way of encouraging property owning amongst the working class yet it is rarely mentioned in social history and I hope to rectify this in some work that I am doing on my home village of Easington.

Thank you very much for your prompt response.

Nyra Wilson