Brandon was also a manor of the medieval lordship of Brancepeth and as such was possessed by the Neville family, the Earls of Westmoreland, while Holywell, Langley, Littleburn and other such localities were the sites of large freehold gentry houses.

The Brancepeth lands were broken up in a series of sales to London merchants and financiers who in turn resold to local buyers at high profits.

In 1796 William Russell, a coal owner, retired from mining the Durham Coalfield and spent part of his fortune on buying and restructuring Brancepeth Castle.

It is recorded that John Shaw was operating a landsale pit in 1836 using a whim-gin, usually employing horses or a bull, to raise the coal to the surface.

Bell Brothers of Newcastle and Middlesbrough commenced sinking at Browney colliery in 1871, with coal being drawn in 1873 from three shafts working the Brockwell, Busty, and Hutton seams.

In 1931 the company went into liquidation, and the pit was re-opened by Bearpark Coal and Coke Co. on a smaller scale to work the Busty seam, until flooding from the River Browney forced its closure in December 1950.

This in turn was abolished as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England and has been replaced by a unitary Durham County Council.