England Guide
The Northeast
Durham Cathedral
Opening time: Mon– Sat 9.30am–6/8pm, Sun 12.30–5.30/8pm; tower Mon– Sat 10am–3/4pm; Treasures of St Cuthbert Mon– Sat 10am–4.30pm, Sun 2–4.30pm; guided tours 3 daily Easter week & mid-July to mid-Sept
Price: £4 suggested donation; tours £4; tower £3; Treasures of St Cuthbert £2.50
Telephone: 0191/386 4266
Website: www.durhamcathedral.co.uk
Durham Cathedral was completed in 1133 and is considered a supreme example of the Norman-Romanesque style. The awe-inspiring nave used pointed arches for the first time in England, raising the vaulted ceiling to new and dizzying heights. The weight of the stone is borne by massive pillars, their heaviness relieved by striking Moorish-influenced geometric patterns. Separated from the nave by a Victorian marble screen is the choir, where the dark-stained Restoration stalls are overshadowed by the vainglorious bishop's throne, reputedly the highest in medieval Christendom.
The Chapel of the Nine Altars dates from the thirteenth century, its Early English stonework distinguished by its delicacy of detail. Here, and around the adjoining Shrine of St Cuthbert, much of the stonework is of local Weardale marble, each dark shaft bearing its own fancy pattern of fossils. Cuthbert himself lies beneath a plain marble slab, his shrine having gained a reputation over the centuries for its curative powers. The legend was given credence in 1104, when the saint's body was exhumed for reburial here, and was found to be completely uncorrupted, more than four hundred years after his death on Lindisfarne. Almost certainly, this was the result of his fellow monks having (unintentionally) preserved the body by laying it in sand containing salt crystals. The Treasures of St Cuthbert exhibition in the undercroft displays some striking relics of the saint, along with the cathedral's original twelfth-century lion-head Sanctuary Knocker and a splendid facsimile copy of the Lindisfarne Gospels (the originals are in the British Library in London).
The Galilee Chapel was begun in the 1170s, its light and exotic decoration in imitation of the Great Mosque of Córdoba. It contains the simple tombstone of the Venerable Bede, the Northumbrian monk credited with being England's first historian. Bede died at the monastery of Jarrow in 735, and his remains were first transferred to the cathedral in 1020.