Durham Castle and Cathedral - England Best Castles - Travel & Discover

Durham epitomizes the unparalleled landscapes and momentous history that has shaped England's people, geography and culture. The medieval city centre of this northern English city is perched on a hilly peninsula surrounded by the winding River Weir. History has moulded Durham, and its medieval character has been carefully preserved, making today's city a compact open-air museum. In medieval times, Durham was a major centre of both political and ecclesiastical power. Mainly due to its strategic location near the Scottish border. County Durham was a Palatinate, ruled by Prince Bishops who wielded secular authority and enjoyed considerable autonomy from Westminster, minting their own coinage, dispensing their own justice and maintaining the right to maintain their own armies. The name Durham is thought to have come from the Old English Dun, meaning hill, and the Old Norse Holm, which translates to island. Some attribute the city's name to the legend of the Dun Cow, and the milkmaid who was said to have guided the monks of Lindisfarne, carrying the body of Saint Cuthbert, to the site of the present city in 995 AD. The Weir flows through the historic city of Durham. A severe meander in the Weir at Durham created the perfect defensive feature for a castle. Along with the rivers Tyne and Tees, the Weir was a vital part of the demography and geography of the region that ensured it played a crucial role during the Industrial Revolution. The upper reaches of the river run through former lead mining country, and further downstream the lead is replaced with coal. Limestone was also quarried in the Weir Valley. All three were vital to the industrial processes that developed during the transformation of Britain from a sleepy agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse. Located on a rocky butte, the monumental array constituted by the cathedral and its outbuildings to the south, and by the castle which inhibits the main access to the peninsula to the north, makes up one of the best-known cityscapes of medieval Europe. The architectural evolution of the castle, which took place over eight centuries, is complex. Of the original Norman foundation, there remains essentially the typical layout comprising a moat to the east and a large bailey to the west. The construction was begun in 1072 by Waltheoff, Earl of Northumberland, but several years later William the Conqueror entrusted the guarding of the castle to Bishop Walker of Lorraine. The castle remaining under the sway of the successive bishops of Durham for 750 years was both an effective fortress, which regularly faced the onslaught of Scottish troops, and the seat of the administrative and legal powers exercised on behalf of the king by the bishops, who became bishop-princes following the reform. Although castle architecture developed over the centuries in line with weapons technology, the basic principles remained much the same. A good castle provided a secure base that could be easily defended. It had defenses against frontal attacks such as thick high walls, and secure entry gates as well as defenses from undermining, including rock foundations or a moat. It also furnished means of repelling attackers, while minimizing exposure of the defenders, such as arrow loops, crenellation, machicolations, and murder holes. It also provided means of escape and of making sorties against attackers, including postern gates and secret tunnels. The chapel stair turret, or clock tower, which was built by Bishop Tunstall, gives access to his gallery and chapel. It projects boldly into the courtyard, the south end being semi-octagonal in plan. The turret has a window lighting the stairs, and two windows and a chamber over the stairs, all similar in detail to those in the gallery. The porch at the main entrance to the hall is of an impressive and bold design. The doorway has a semi-circular arch with richly molded keystone, foliated spandrels, and square jams having molded capitals. It is flanked by pairs of detached ionic columns standing on pedestals. Inside the porch is a doorway, giving access to the lobby of the hall stairs. A portion of the hall is divided into various apartments, constructing a timber-framed house within the existing walls. The interior has been much altered and originally must have possessed a basement, now filled in. The only item of interest remaining from a fire that occurred in the 19th century is the oak staircase of late 18th century date. It has plain square newels finished at the top with flat capitals, surmounted by a ball, and at the bottom with similar capitals and pear-shaped pendants. The wooden handrail, an ambitious project of cause, is shaped and the balusters flat and cut. The elaborately carved staircase is now known as the Black Stairs from the color of its woodwork. Most of the 17th century work in and around the castle accordingly belongs to the restoration period under John Causen, Prince Bishop, and to a lesser extent his successor Nathaniel Crewe. Since the castle also had to be largely refurnished, virtually all of the surviving furniture, pictures, and other adornments date to this time or later. Under Causen, the castle required and received a huge amount of general repair work, but he also found the time and money to make what were to be the last substantial additions to the fabric of the castle. Both floors are served by the original early internal corridor. The original entrance to the castle dates from 1080. The upper corridor is lighted with five square-headed windows of three lights with hood molds, each window subdivided by transom, and finished at the top with three centered arched heads. The buttresses on each side of the fourth bay are carried up considerably above the others and finished with a parapet as before. The present castle is a veritable labyrinth of halls and galleries from different periods, including various vestiges from the Roman era. Durham was considered one of England's leading centers of medieval scholarship, along with Oxford and Cambridge. Indeed, three colleges, now part of Oxford University, were founded from Durham, including University College and Balliol College. In 1286, Durham College was founded to train scholars for the city, which it did for the next 300 years until it became incorporated into Oxford as Trinity College. Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell's attempts to formally establish a university for the north in Durham were subsumed by politics and north-south rivalries, and it was not until 1832, as a prince bishopric declined and lost his powers, that Durham was finally endowed with a castle and lands as well as granted a degree awarding powers by the king as England's third university. The Great Hall, known also as occupies a greater part of the west side of the courtyard, and is one of the finest surviving examples in England of a castle hall, both in terms of size and simple grandeur. The ceiling is 14 meters high and the hall 30 meters long. Beck built the Great Hall on the site it now occupies, though little of his work remains visible except the entrance doorway and three small windows formerly lighting the undercroft. Hatfield enlarged Beck's Great Hall, adding a carved roof, minstrel's galleries, and two thrones. Cawson's panelling and screen are shown in a picture by Hastings hanging in the Great Hall. It is not known when the panelling and screen were removed. During the early part of the university's occupation the walls appeared to have been bare. The Great Hall was the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle, or large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Great Halls were found especially in France, England, and Scotland, but similar rooms were also found in some other European countries. In the medieval period the room would simply have been referred to as the hall, unless the building also had a secondary hall, but the term Great Hall has been predominant for surviving rooms of this type for several centuries to distinguish them from the type of hall found in post-medieval houses. A typical Great Hall was a rectangular room between one and a half and three times as long as it was wide, and also higher than it was wide. It was entered through a screens passage at one end, and had windows on one of the long sides, often including a large bay window. There was often a minstrel's gallery above the screens passage. At the other end of the hall was a dais, where the top table was situated. The lord's family's more private rooms lay beyond the dais end of the hall, and the kitchen, buttery, and pantry were on the opposite side of the screens passage. Even the royal and noble residences had few living rooms in the Middle Ages, and a Great Hall was a multifunction room. It was used for receiving guests, and it was a place where the household would dine together, including the lord of the house, his gentlemen attendants, and at least some of the servants. At night, some members of the household might sleep on the floor of the Great Hall. The Great Hall of Durham Castle is of Norman design, although the hall was not added until the 14th century. Durham Castle's Great Hall features splendid stained glass windows, a rarity in a private residence. Proud owners of one of Europe's most stunning urban panoramas, Durham Cathedral and Castle are evidence of the city's historic and cultural influence. The Norman Chapel was added shortly after the castle's foundation in 1072, and probably employed Saxon masons in its construction. It is carved of beautiful swirling sandstone. The pillar capitals are decorated with pre-Christian imagery, featuring animals and mythical beasts. Durham Cathedral has been described as one of the great architectural experiences of Europe. It is the only cathedral in England to retain almost all of its Norman craftsmanship, and one of few to preserve the unity and integrity of its original design. The history of Durham is linked to that of the transfer the body of St. Cuthbert, the evangelist of Northumbria, who was buried on the island of Lindisfarne in 687. In order to keep his remains safe from Viking raids, the monks transported them to Durham in 995, where the Lindisfarne bishopric had been transferred. After the Norman conquest, Bishops Walsher of Lorraine and William of St. Calais undertook to reform the clergy in Durham. Thus Durham became a privileged cathedral in which the northern Christian traditions were revived thanks to a monastic community that grew around the relics of Cuthbert and the venerable bead, which were brought to the cathedral in 1022. The sober masses of the harmonious façade are flanked by two slightly projecting towers, which were partially rebuilt during the 13th and 14th centuries. The architecture of Durham Cathedral came to represent the prototype for subsequent developments in Britain. The construction of the present cathedral, which is linked to the banishment of William of Calais in Normandy and his return from exile, constitutes one of the high points in the history of medieval architecture. The speed of the progress of the works, which were completed in 40 years time, accounts for the formidable unity in the style of this building, whose original layout has hardly which are clustered around a small square green called the Cloister Garth. The buildings surrounding the Garth were the monastic priory buildings of the cathedral, and include the chapter house, the monk's dormitory, the refectory, and the great kitchen. Around the square green are four covered cloister walkways, where the monks spent considerable periods of time during the heyday of the Durham Priory. The cloister was begun at the same time as the cathedral, but contains much work from the 15th century or later. Above the western walkway of the cloister is a monk's dormitory, the site of the sleeping quarters. Dating from the 14th century, it has an extremely impressive roof of wooden oak beams. It now houses a library belonging to the dean and chapter, as well as a collection of Anglo-Saxon and Viking crosses from throughout the chapter house, where meetings were held to discuss the day-to-day running of the cathedral. The buildings of the nave, the choir, and the accompanying aisles form the central body of the cathedral, and it is these which were largely built to William of Calais' designs in the period of 1093 to 1135. Inside the cathedral, the nave is particularly striking for its massive spiral and zigzag decorated cylindrical piers or columns, and the larger multiple-columned compound piers, which support the impressive diamond-ribbed vaulting of the ceiling high above. The ribbed vaulting at Durham was in its time technically far more advanced than any vaulting found anywhere else in Britain or on the continent. The tombs of John V Lord Neville and his son Ralph Neville are also housed in the cathedral. It was Ralph who successfully led the English into victory over the Scots at the Battle of Neville's Cross just outside Durham in 1346. As an honor for the victory, he became the first layman to be allowed burial in the cathedral. The history of the cathedral continues to evolve and is reflected in the art and artifacts it has preserved over the centuries. Durham Cathedral takes the form of a Latin cross, centered on the four great piers of the crossing. The choir extended four bays to the east and originally terminated with a short bay, which led into a semicircular apse. Dials also terminated in apses, and these were encased with rectangular outer walls. The transepts of the cathedral, which extend north and south for four bays, are furnished with an aisle on the eastern side. Stair turrets project at the northwest and southwest angles. On the end wall of the south transept is Prior Castle's clock, which dates from the early 16th century. Dominating the south transept like a giant golden carriage clock, the clock was provided by Thomas Castle, penultimate Prior of the monastery from 1495 to 1519. At eye level, on the door panels, is a painting of a 17th century church interior. The stalls of finely carved wood of the choir date from the 1660s, replacing original medieval ones. The 14th century high altar was carved from canned stone in London. Without doubt, the most beautiful feature that chapeled the nine altars is a huge rose window, which was originally made in the 15th century. Today, the simple grey stone tomb inscribed Cuthbertus is all that remains of the saint's shrine, but prior to the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century, the whole area around the tomb was an elaborately decorated shrine in cream marble and gold, described as one of the richest monuments in England. It remains a place of pilgrimage. The huge chapel of the nine altars at the eastern end of the cathedral was begun in 1242 during the episcopacy of Bishop Richard the Poor, who was also associated with the building of Salisbury Cathedral. It was completed in 1280. This new chapel provided more space for the increasing number of visiting pilgrims who packed the aisles and choir of the cathedral to visit the shrine of Saint Cuthbert. The nine altars also permitted the many priests of the monastery to say mass each day. The stained glass windows of the nave date mainly from the Victorian era. The bishop's throne dates from the mid-14th century. The Bishop of Durham uses this lofty seat the first time he comes to the cathedral, but thereafter he sits near the chancel screen. When it was built, the throne was claimed to be the highest in Christendom. Below the throne is the Hatfield Chantry, a chapel containing the tomb of Thomas Hatfield, Bishop of Durham and founder of Trinity College, Oxford. The Galilee Chapel, or Lady Chapel, dates from the late 1100s and 1200s and is located where the west porch, or northex, would normally be. It was built so that women could come here and worship without setting the monks' hearts racing. Although the chapel was only built a few decades after the nave, the design patterns had already become noticeably slimmer. Wall paintings on the northern side date from the 12th century and are thought to depict Saint Cuthbert and Saint Oswald. The chapel also contains the tomb of the Venerable Bede, the 8th century monk and first historian of the English Church. His body was stolen from Jarrow, where it was originally entombed, and transferred to Durham Cathedral around 1020. Bede was declared a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church in 1899, the only Englishman to have received such an honour. The dramatic panorama over the city of Durham is widely regarded as one of the great visual experiences of Europe, combining outstanding architecture and a superb setting. The castle and church dominate the city in their position high above the river Weir. Durham's maze of medieval streets wind up and down the city's hills. Some are lined with red sandstone buildings, while others have colourfully painted houses. A thousand years of welcoming pilgrims have given the city a reputation for hospitality, which it maintains today with its relaxed atmosphere and many pedestrian areas, which allow visitors to take time to appreciate the city's beauty. Durham was a Roman military outpost on Hadrian's Wall, which was built to keep the Celts of the north, today's Scotland, out of England. The Saxons made Durham part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. The Romans were the first to make a significant and lasting impact on the county's settlements and communications. Having conquered the native Bregance tribe around 80 AD, they built Deer Street as their supply route from York to the Firth of Forth. Durham's marketplace, the focal point of the city, has medieval origins, though the present market squares largely of Victorian origin. The marketplace is surrounded by the Town Hall, Guildhall and St. Nicholas Church, as well as statues of Neptune and the Third Marquis of Londonderry. The red telephone box has been a British icon for decades. The Victorian St. Nicholas Church, commonly known as St. Nick's, replaced an earlier version from the early part of the 12th century. Unlike the present church, which is a listed building, the earlier incarnation had a tower, rather than a spire. The magnificent landscape of County Durham includes parts of the Pennines, the North Yorkshire Dales and the National Nature Reserves of Durham's coastal regions. Uncrowded roads lead to unspoiled countryside, including some of the highest, wildest and finest scenery in England. This is perfect country for walking, cycling, riding, wildlife watching and exploring charming villages and towns. The Durham World Heritage Site, then comprising Durham Cathedral and Castle, was inscribed by UNESCO in 1986. As such, it was one of the first places in the United Kingdom to be recognized as being of outstanding universal value, in this case, for its architectural, political and spiritual importance. The North East is unique in England for its Christian heritage. The history of its places and people testifies to the power of Christianity in this Saxon era to shape the character and destiny of an entire people. Sites such as Durham and artifacts such as Cuthbert's Cross are potent reminders of the spiritual,