Durham Cathedral

Standing proudly on a peninsula in a loop of the River Wear, Durham Cathedral dominates the landscape from its lofty perch, watching over the city as it has done for nearly nine hundred years. Its story began when Viking raids forced the monks of Lindisfarne to leave the island and its cathedral, taking the relics of St Cuthbert with them. The community wandered from place to place until they reached Durham where, so legend has it, the body of Cuthbert would not be moved any further. Taking this as a sign from God, Bishop Adelhun ordered a church to be built. The relics of St Cuthbert were a major draw to pilgrims, among them King Canute.

In 1093, Bishop William of Calais started on the present building, sharing the cost of construction with the monks, who re-formed the community as a Benedictine house. Cuthbert was moved into his opulent new shrine in 1104, and most of the building was complete by 1133. Indeed, most of that work still stands today, making Durham unique: every other great church in England was rebuilt in a newer style. There were additions in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the 1170s Bishop Hugh Pudsey abandoned work on a Lady Chapel at the east end (deciding that cracks in the pillars were a sign from God) and instead built the Galilee Chapel at the west end. While Durham was a monastery, this was the only part of the church that women could enter. Since 1370 it has housed the remains of the Venerable Bede.

About 1229, Bishop Richard Poore came from Salisbury, where a great new cathedral was being built in the Gothic style. By this time Durham’s east end was in poor repair, so Poore started building a replacement, the Chapel of the Nine Altars, in which the influenceof Salisbury is clear. The towers above - click to enlarge) date from this period too, apart from the central one (top right - click to enlarge) which was replaced after being struck by lightning in about 1470.
There were no major additions in the fourteenth century, save the cloister, (right - click to enlarge) which was begun in 1390 and finished about 1418. However, the Jesse window in the west wall of the nave, the window of the Four Doctors in the north transept, the bishop’s throne and the altar screen all date from that period. The last new building was the belfry in 1490, but of course the Reformation fifty years later changed life at Durham Cathedral dramatically.
In 1538 Cuthbert’s tomb was opened, on the orders of the king. His body was apparently not decayed in any way, but he was moved from his shrine to lie under the plain slab where he still rests today. (Left - click to enlarge) On New Year’s Eve 1540 the Benedictine monastery was dissolved, and in January 1541 re-founded as simply a cathedral. As was often the case, the last prior became the first dean and twelve monks became canons, forming the new chapter.

The cathedral suffered major disruption in 1650, when Cromwell imprisoned 3,000 Scots in it after the battle of Dunbar. Kept in appalling conditions, the prisoners used much of thewoodwork to make fires, but over half of them died. Prior Castell's clock, (right) which featured the Scottish thistle, was spared however. The prisoners' bodies were buried in unmarked graves. In 1660, Bishop John Cosin repaired a lot of this damage, putting in new woodwork which is visible today.

Durham then endured some appalling ‘restoration’ in the eighteenth century, which involved the demolition of the chapter house and much damage to the fabric. In the 1790s, as part of this modernisation, the Galilee Chapel was about to be demolished when it was saved by an early preservation campaign. Luckily work done since then has been far more sensitive. Durham remains the home of the remains of Cuthbert and Bede, as well as the head of St Oswald of Northumbria. It is quite simply one of the finest cathedrals in the world and rightly a World Heritage Site.