As the highest point for miles around and on the route of a Roman Road from the Humber to the Tyne, Sadberge was an obvious place for a settlement, and there's been a church on the site of St Andrew's for hundreds of years.  The porch contains several stones believed to be of Saxon origin, and it is certain that a Norman church existed on the hilltop until its demolition in the 1830s.  Unbelievably, the Norman stones were sold by the builder of the new church and used to construct a public house and to reinforce the banks of the River Skerne in the centre of Darlington!  One stone at least has found its way into the existing church -