Durham Castle and Cathedral in Northern England
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The town of Durham and its castle with
the cathedral in the foreground. |
Durham is a small and exquisite
city set on a hilltop peninsula on a bend of the River Wear in north-east
England. A lively university town since the early nineteenth century, its
main attractions are its glorious Romanesque cathedral, founded in 1903,
and its castle, originally built in 1072. Surrounding both these
buildings is a maze of little cobbled streets and lovely walks down to
the river.
Durham Castle was the home of
the prince bishops of Durham, (so called by William the Conqueror in
order to pacify both the locals and the Scots), right up until 1837 when
it became the original college of the just-founded university, and it
remains a university hall to this day. Each prince bishop added and
changed the castle in the centuries that followed its inception, but as
it was built of soft stone onto soft ground it needed constant
restoration and renovation. The Norman chapel, which was built in 1080,
is wonderfully preserved, and is only one of a number of highlights to be
seen within this enormous castle.
The cathedral is also vast, and
the interior is spectacular - it was the first cathedral in Europe to be
roofed with stone-ribbed vaulting, and the transverse arches were the
first of their kind to be built in Britain. The central and western
towers were built in the thirteenth century, but the central tower had to
be completely rebuilt in the fifteenth century after it was struck by
lightning. The Galilee chapel, which was built in 1175, contains the tomb
of the Venerable Bede and also some rare examples of twelfth-century
religious murals. No visit to Durham would be complete without a visit to
the stunning cathedral.
