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Durham  Locator map for the English administrative region of Durham. County of northeast England (since April 1997 Darlington has been a separate unitary authority). Area 2,232 sq km/862 sq mi Towns and cities Durham (administrative headquarters), Newton Aycliffe, Peterlee, Chester-le-Street Physical Pennine Hills; rivers Wear and Tees Features Beamish open-air industrial museum; site of one of Britain's richest coalfields (pits now closed); Bowes Museum; Barnard Castle; Durham Cathedral (1133); University of Durham (1832), partly housed in Durham Castle; dales in the west of the county Agriculture sheep; dairy produce; hill farming Industries clothing; chemicals; iron and steel processing; light engineering industries; quarrying; cement; pharmaceuticals; tourism Population (2001) 493,500 Famous people Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Anthony Eden Topography County Durham extends from the North Sea west to the Pennines between the rivers Tyne and Tees. It is bounded on the north by Northumberland, and Tyne and Wear; on the west by Cumbria; and on the south North Yorkshire, Stockton-on-Tees, and Hartlepool. East of the River Wear, Durham occupies a low plateau (100–120 m/328–394 ft above sea-level) with a coast lined by cliffs. The rock here is magnesian limestone, which is covered by glacial deposits. Seams of coal, which are underneath the limestone in the east, form the surface rock in the centre of the county, covered only by deposits from post-glacial lakes. Coal seams are also found in the west of the county. |
The county Palatinate Between 1071 and 1836, Durham was a Palatinate county, that is the Bishop of Durham exercised such jurisdiction over the territory as in other counties belonged to the sovereign. The county was made a Palatinate because of its strategic position on the then main route to Scotland and its distance from the English government in London. The bishops fortified an outcrop on a loop of the River Wear at Durham, and built an imposing cathedral there. From here they repelled, generally successfully, a series of Scottish incursions during the 12–14th centuries. Hartlepool was the bishops' port, Bishop Auckland their country residence, and the |
| ‘forest’ of Weardale their hunting ground. |
Industrial past Until the 18th century, lead and coal were worked on a very small scale. Long wagonways were built from the north of the county to the River Tyne in the late 18th century, facilitating exports. From 1825 coal was transported by railway from southwest Durham to the Tees. Both the coal from the west of the county, used to produce coke, and that from the north and centre of the county, used for steam engines, were in great demand. The number of mines grew, until even the coal concealed beneath the limestone in the east of the county was being mined by the late 19th century. From 1801 to 1921 the population rose tenfold as mining villages of 500–10,000 people spread across the county. |
| The largest firms were the Consett steelworks (closed in 1980) and the engineering and railway workshops at Darlington. By the 1920s the demand for coal was falling and the older pits in the west and centre of the county were becoming more expensive to work. In these areas post-war rationalization led to a rundown of coal production. Government regional policies encouraged light engineering, electrical, and clothing factories on industrial estates across the coalfield, especially in the centre and east of the county. Housing was improved, and new towns built at Peterlee (designated in 1948) and Newton Aycliffe (1947). Many people now work outside the county in the industrial areas on Tyneside and Teesside. |
DurhamCity and administrative headquarters of the county of Durham, northeast England, on the River Wear, 19 km/12 mi south of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; population (2001) 42,900. Formerly a centre for the coalmining industry (the last pit closed in 1993), the city now has light engineering industries and manufactures textiles, carpets, and clothing. Features Durham has a fine Norman cathedral and the remains of a castle built in 1072 by William I. The cathedral and castle are together a World Heritage Site. Other features include the university's Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art and Archaeology (1960), the UK's only museum wholly devoted to the subject, and the annual Miners' Gala. The university was founded in 1832. Cathedral and castle Durham Cathedral and castle are situated on a 30 m/98 ft-high sandstone hill which forms a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the River Wear. According to tradition, Bishop Aldhun and his community of monks from Lindisfarne brought the uncorrupted body of St Cuthbert (died 687) here from Chester-Le-Street in 995, guided by a girl looking for her lost dun cow. They established a church to serve as St Cuthbert's shrine, which became a place of pilgrimage for Saxons and Normans. The site was then called Dunholme, or ‘hill island’. Little remains of the original Saxon cathedral. |
| The present cathedral was built between 1093 and 1133. The nave was begun in 1093 by Bishop William of St Carileph and finished in 1128 by Bishop Flambard. The interior of the cathedral is richly ornamented and has the earliest English examples of pointed transverse arches, and ribbed vaulting on a grand scale. The remains of the theologian and historian the Venerable Bede were brought to Durham in about 1020, and they were encased and put in the Lady Chapel in 1370. |
| In return for defending the northern Marches against Scottish invasions, the bishops of Durham were given important secular powers, holding sway over a county palatine with many royal privileges. They had their own army, courts, councils, and judges. The palatinate powers of the bishops were gradually reduced after the 14th century and William van Mildert (1826–36) was the last ‘prince bishop’. |
| The castle, situated on Palace Green opposite the cathedral, was the palace of the bishops of Durham until it was transferred to the new Durham University in 1836, when the bishops moved their home to the palace at Bishop Auckland. The university now occupies most of the castle buildings, and the keep is a student hall of residence. Other features include the kitchen, built in 1499; the Black Staircase, added by Bishop Cosin in the 1665; and the Norman chapel dating from about 1080. The Great Hall was originally built in Norman times but the present structure was built by Bishop Hatfield in the early 14th century. |
| The building nearest the castle gate, now part of the university library, was once the exchequer built by Bishop Neville in 1450. Nearby is the library built by Bishop Cosin in 1669. On the opposite side are the 17th-century almshouses, now lecture rooms, also built by Bishop Cosin. |
Other architectural features The restored St Oswald's Church dates from the 11th century; St Margaret's has considerable late-Norman remains; St Giles was built in 1112; and St Mary-le-Bow has an 18th-century screen. The town hall, built in 1851, incorporates examples of modern stained glass. The mayor's chamber has 18th-century panelling and a fine Jacobean overmantle. The two main bridges, Framwellgate and Elvet, both date from the 12th century. The buildings at the southeast end of the Elvet bridge show traces of the chapel of St Andrew which once stood on the site. From Prebend's Bridge, built in the 1770s, there are fine views of the cathedral. Kepier Hospital was founded in 1112; and Sherburn Hospital, established as a 12th-century leper hospital, was extensively rebuilt as a combined hospital and almshouses. Durham Light Infantry Museum illustrates the history of the Durham regiment. |
| The site of the Battle of Neville's Cross, where the English defeated the Scots in 1346, is on the northern outskirts of the city. |
Durham| City and administrative headquarters of Durham County, north-central North Carolina, USA, 40 km/25 mi northwest of Raleigh, on the Eno River; population (2000) 187,000. Tobacco is the main industry here; other products include precision instruments, textiles, furniture, and lumber. Durham is the home of Duke University (founded as Union Institute in 1838, it was enlarged by the Duke family and called Duke University in 1924), North Carolina Central University (1910), and Durham Technical Institute (1961). |
| Durham was settled in 1750 and developed around the tobacco industry in the 19th century; it was incorporated in 1869. Washington Duke and his sons began making tobacco products here after the American Civil War. In the 1880s, they mechanized the industry, making Durham the leading US cigarette producer. The city has also become a medical centre, relying largely on tobacco money. Bennett Place State Historical Park, 5 km/3 mi to the northwest, was the site, on 26 April 1865, of Joseph Johnston's surrender of the last Confederate force active in the East. |
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