Lambton Lodge moved away from Chester-le-Street in 1901, leaving Earl of Durham Lodge as the only lodge in the town. It held that position for over twenty years, and being the only one meant it carried a good deal of the town's standing. Local newspapers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries covered its annual Installation meetings and the appointment of its officers in some detail, which tells you something worth knowing. These lodges were part of public life in Chester-le-Street, reported in the local press, rather than hidden away from it.

By 1923 the town had grown to twelve thousand people and demand for membership had outgrown a single lodge. Cestria Lodge No 4493 was consecrated that year. Five more followed over the decades that came after, through the war years and beyond, each one answering the same demand.

The growth has not stopped. Spirit of Rugby Lodge was consecrated in 2015 for masons with a connection to the game. Two further lodges, Anglers and Gambrinus, were both consecrated in 2024.

Nine lodges, two hundred years on, with two of them founded in the last two years. For an institution that people assume is fading, that is not a bad answer.