The exact date of the foundation of St. Anne’s Church is not known. The present Grade 2 listed 19th century structure is the successor to at least three previous chapels on the same site, the first recorded of which was well established by the late 14th century. It is most likely to have originated some tow hundred years earlier than tha, when Bishop Hugh du Puiset (1153-1195) made his Manor House at Auckland the principle residence of the Bishops of Durham, with all the staff and dependent required for their princely  as well as Episcopal state.

It seems to have been originally a ‘chapel of ease’ outside Auckland Castle walls, for the purpose (according to Matthew Richley, a local C19th historian)

“of preventing overcrowding of the Bishop’s own chapel and of keeping its congregation more select; and of providing accommodation for the elderly, infirm and others unable to attend the ancient Parish Church of St Andrew.”

Another local antiquarian, William Hutchinson, writing in 1794, says,

“This chapel was of great antiquity, and dedicated to St Anne, appertaining to the guild instituted in the Church of St Andrew, in which chapel the guild was held to the time of Edward VI” *

*From a chuch leaflet – A brief historical outline of the Church of St Anne, Bishop Auckland