The Deerness Valley lies a little south of west of Durham City; it extends from two miles to nine miles from the city. Open rolling hills rise 850 feet above sea level from the valley bottom which itself rises from 300 feet at the east to 600 feet in the west. Most of the valley is used for cattle- and sheep-grazing. Three villages lie on the road along the valley; Ushaw Moor, Esh Winning and Waterhouses. Westward from Esh Winning runs the Cornsay Valley, 1¼ miles up which is Cornsay Colliery. Between these two villages is the hamlet of Hamsteels and above Hamsteels, on a bleak fell top, is Quebec, so named because the land upon which the village was built was enclosed in the year of Wolfe's victory at Quebec. Quebec and Hamsteels, though ¼ mile apart, are treated as one village by local residents. The names are used interchangeably and this practice is followed in the present work. Above Esh Winning, in the main valley, are the villages of Waterhouses, Hamilton Row and East Hedleyhope (see map).

The railway from Durham to Waterhouses opened in 1857 and closed in 1963, although passenger services were only provided from the late nineteenth century until 1947. A metalled road from Esh Winning to Waterhouses was built as a local public works project in the 1920s at which time the valley received its first motor-bus service.