Crook is a small town at the eastern end of Weardale in the  horse shoe valley formed by the Crook beck, and was little more than a hamlet around a village green until the early 19th century. The considerable expansion of coal mining increased the population of the area, including the surrounding villages, from 193 in 1801 to some 12000 by the early 1900s.
The opening of a branch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the development of various ancillary industries, including brick works and coke works, helped it to grow into an important local centre. Despite the pressures of industrialisation followed by a long period of economic stagnation, the essentially urban centre of Crook retains the very attractive ingredients of the village which preceded it; the large village green with a small parish church on it sloping down to the Crook beck, with a group of houses around the more ambitious Roman Catholic Church of the lower slopes of Dowfold Hill as a back-cloth. The hillside behind these buildings is almost clear of development and forms an essential par of the best view of the town centre.
Old Police Station, bottom of Hope Street Both the eastern end of the green and Church Hill retain a large number of small, informally grouped, private terraced houses, mainly dating from the mid 19th century, which convey something of what Crook must have been like when it was still a small village. Around the green itself most of the buildings have limited special qualities, but they are generally appropriate to their setting, and when combined provide a pleasing built environment.
The main shops are at the further, upper, end of the green and northwards along Hope Street, which is narrow and winding. Most of the buildings are two storeys but there are some three storey ones, Royal Corner and the Civic Centre being most notable.