Patrick Comerford
My visit to Durham last weekend was all too brief. We were on a family visit to York, I needed to get back to York for a family dinner, and with just a few hours to walk around I wanted to see as much as possible of the mediaeval city, with its cathedral, castle, cobbled streets, riverside walks and the third oldest university in England.
Durham has a population of about 50,000 people, and the cathedral and the castle on Palace Green, high above the River Wear have been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Durham is also the home of the Durham Miners’ Gala and has a rich trade union history: the Durham coalfields developed during the Industrial Revolution, with dozens of collieries around the city. Although the coal pits are long closed, the Durham Miners’ Gala is still a major event each year.
The city is built on a meander of the River Wear that surrounds the centre on three sides and creates a narrow neck on the fourth. The city centre has changed little over 200 years. It is made up of the peninsula containing the cathedral, the castle and Palace Green that give the cathedral a striking position.
Durham dates back over 1,000 years to 995, when a small band of monks from Lindisfarne seeking a place that was safe from Viking raids arrived with the relics of Saint Cuthbert. The church they built eventually evolved into Durham Cathedral, regarded by Unesco as ‘the largest and most perfect monument of Norman style architecture in England.’
The 12th-century chronicler Symeon of Durham wrote: ‘To see Durham is to see the English Sion and by doing so one may save oneself a trip to Jerusalem’.
Sir Walter Scott was so inspired by the view of the cathedral from South Street that he wrote the poem ‘Harold the Dauntless’ (1817), about Saxons and Vikings and set in County Durham. Lines from the poem are carved on a stone tablet on Prebends Bridge:
Grey towers of Durham
Yet well I love thy mixed and massive piles
Half church of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot
And long to roam those venerable aisles
With records stored of deeds long since forgot.
The name Durham comes from dun, indicating a hill fort, and the Old Norse holme, referring to an island. But, as I recalled on Thursday evening, legends also link the name with the Dun Cow and the milkmaid who guided the monks of Lindisfarne to the strategic high peninsula that became the site of Durham cathedral.
Durham was once a buffer between warring England and Scotland, and until 1836 the city was part of the County Palatine of Durham, a semi-independent jurisdiction ruled by the prince bishops of Durham.
Mediaeval Durham became a place of pilgrimage because of its associations with Saint Cuthbert, Saint Bede the Venerable and Saint Oswald. The shrine of Saint Cuthbert at Durham Cathedral became the most important religious site in England until Saint Thomas Becket was murdered at Canterbury in 1170.
Durham played an important rolw in the mediaeval wars between England and Scotland, and Durham Castle is the only Norman castle keep never to have suffered a breach. The castle on Palace Green was originally built in the 11th century, is an excellent example of early motte and bailey castles built by the Normans.
The Bishops of Durham, who lived in Durham Castle, ruled the County Palatine of Durham from 1071 to 1836 and the bishop was sometimes described as a ‘prince bishop’. The bishops had their own parliament, raised their own armies, appointed their own sheriffs and Justices, administered their own laws, levied taxes and customs duties, created fairs and markets, issued charters, collected revenue, administered the forests and minted their own coins.
The bishops’ powers were so far-reaching that the steward of Bishop Antony Bek said in 1299: ‘There are two kings in England, namely the Lord King of England, wearing a crown in sign of his regality and the Lord Bishop of Durham wearing a mitre in place of a crown’.
The castle has been in continuous use for over 900 years. It was famed for its vast Great Hall, created by Bishop Bek in the early 14th century. It was the largest great hall in England until Bishop Richard Foxe shortened it at the end of the 15th century. It is still 46 ft high and about 100 ft long.
The city remained loyal to Charles I in the English Civil War, from 1642 until the king’s execution in 1649, and he visited Durham three times during his reign. But the castle suffered considerable damage during the Commonwealth. Cromwell sold the castle to the Lord Mayor of London shortly, and the cathedral was closed in 1650 and used to hold 3,000 Scottish prisoners after the Battle of Dunbar.
John Cosin, one of the great Caroline Divines, became Bishop of Durham (1660-1672) after the restoration and began a major restoration project in the cathedral, the castle and the city.
There were plans in the 18th century to transform Durham into a seaport by digging a canal or altering the course of the river. Nothing came of the plans, however, although the statue of Neptune in the Market Place is a reminder of these maritime ambitions and possibilities.
The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 gave governing power of the town to an elected body. All other aspects of the Bishop’s temporal powers were abolished by the Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 . The last bishop to rule the palatinate, Bishop William Van Mildert, founded Durham University in 1832. It was one of the first universities to open in England for more than 600 years, and is England’s third oldest, after Oxford and Cambridge.
The bishop moved to Auckland Castle and Durham Castle became University College, the first college in the new university. Durham University was founded in 1832. Bishop Hatfield’s Hall, later Hatfield College, was added in 1846, specifically for the sons of poorer families. Durham University ranks in the top 200 of the world’s universities.
The Industrial Revolution also placed the city at the heart of the coalfields, the county’s main industry until the 1970s. Practically every village around the city had a coal mine and, although these have since disappeared as part of the regional decline in heavy industry, the traditions, heritage and community spirit are still evident. The first Durham Miners' Gala was attended by 5,000 miners in 1871, and it remains the largest socialist trade union event in the world.
Durham was not bombed during World War II, although one raid on the night of 30 May 1942 did give rise to the local legend of ‘Saint Cuthbert’s Mist’. According to the legend, the Luftwaffe tried to target Durham, but was thwarted when Saint Cuthbert created a mist that covered both the castle and cathedral, sparing them from bombing.
Durham is a hilly city, said to be built on seven hills, like Rome and Constantinople. The steep riverbanks are densely wooded, adding to the picturesque beauty of the city. The cathedral and castle stand on the most central and prominent position high above the Wear and dominate the skyline. The Bailey is almost entirely owned and occupied by the university and the cathedral.
The River Wear forms a peninsula that encloses the centre Durham on three sides. The Market Place at the base of the peninsula remains the venue for regular markets and the Market Place and surrounding streets form the heart of commercial and shopping life in the city.
Three old roads lead off the Market Place: Saddler Street heads south-east, towards Elvet Bridge, the Bailey and Prebends Bridge. Elvet Bridge leads to the Elvet area of the city and the south; Prebends Bridge is smaller and provides access from the Bailey to south Durham. Heading west, Silver Street leads out of the Market Place towards Framwellgate Bridge and North Road, the other main shopping area of the city.
The old commercial heart of the city encompasses the peninsula on three sides, following the River Wear, and much of the original mediaeval street plan remains intact in the area close to the cathedral and the Market Place.
Durham Market Place, with its impressive array of buildings and sculptures, is first mentioned in 1040, the heads of Scottish marauders were displayed on poles around the Market Place. Saint Nicholas Church was built in 1133, and part of its former churchyard lies beneath the Market Place.
Durham Town Hall is on the west side of the Market Place. The earliest part of the complex of buildings is the Guildhall which dates from 1665. The town hall, at the rear, was opened in 1851, at the same time as the indoor market.
The statue of Neptune is the oldest statue in the Market Place. It was made of stone covered in lead in 1729, and is a reminder of the plans to make Durham a port. It had a pant or drinking vessel, but was moved in 1923 when the water was no longer needed. Neptune was returned by popular demand in 1991, but the pant did not come with him.
The equestrian statue in the Market Place is of Charles William Vane Tempest Stewart (1778-1854), 3rd Marquis of Londonderry. He was born in Mary Street, Dublin, was involved as a young man in suppressing the 1798 Rising in Ireland, and was later a commander under the Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars.
He married the very wealthy Lady Frances Anne Vane-Tempest and took her name too, and only inherited his family title after Lord Castlereagh, his half-brother and the childless second marquis, died by suicide. He opposed the Mines and Collieries Act and wanted women, girls and boys under 10 to continue working in his pits.
He was one of the 10 richest people in the United Kingdom, yet during the Irish Famine evicted many of his tenants. He advised his tenants ‘to help themselves and heaven will help them’, and suggested only the most ‘supine and inert’ among them could be ‘suffering in any serious degree under the failure of the potato’.
After he died, his widow raised subscriptions for a statue by Raphael Monti (1818-1881), who used a new technique of electroplating copper over a plaster base. The statue was unveiled in 1861, but the larger-than-life work was not popular in Durham and people wanted it moved. Nobody wanted it anywhere else, the cathedral clergy rejected plans to place it on Palace Green, and so it stayed in the Market Place, although it has been moved from its original setting.
I arrived in Durham on the train from York, crossing over the Victorian railway viaduct on North Road, high above the city, and walked along the banks of the River Wear to Durham Cathedral, Durham Castle and the city centre.
A path runs alongside the south bank or cathedral side for the entire length of the stretch available for rowing. Durham Regatta has been held on the River Wear in Durham since 1834. It is the second oldest regatta in Britain and is often referred to as ‘the Henley of the North’.
More than 2 km of the River Wear can be rowed on, stretching from Durham University Boat Club boathouse at Maiden Castle in the east to the weir next to Durham School Boat Club boathouse in the west. This includes the 700 metres ‘short course’ straight used for most Durham Regatta races, the 1,800 metres ‘long course’ that includes navigation through the arches of Elvet Bridge, reputed to be the narrowest row through bridge in Europe, and 1,000 metres and 2,000 metres measured distances.
There are many boating clubs, including Durham Amateur Rowing Club, founded in 1860 and is one of the country’s oldest clubs, Durham University Boat Club, and 16 college clubs, as well as school clubs.
In addition to Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle, the city has over 630 listed buildings. The Grade I listed buildings include the Chorister School, Crook Hall, Durham Castle, Durham Cathedral, and four bridges. The Grade II* listed buildings include Bishop Cosin’s Hall, Palace Green, Cosin’s Library, now part of University Library, Palace Green, the Railway viaduct on North Road, and the Town Hall and Guildhall on Market Place.
As well as visiting the cathedral, other listed churches and former churches I managed to see last weekend include Saint Margaret of Antioch, Crossgate; Saint Mary-le-Bow, now Durham Heritage Centre; Saint Cuthbert’s Roman Catholic Church; and Saint Nicholas Church.
But more about Durham Cathedral and those churches in the days to come, hopefully.
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