24 Hours Durham

Yesterday I left Hadrians Wall country first taking a bus to Haltwhistle, a train to Newcastle. Everything went smoothly and the journey took about 2 hours. There was a train strike on Saturday and the day after a train strike is always plagued by delays as the trains require being shuttled around to restart the system. The train I took to Durham was the first train to successfully leave for London. The station was extremely busy and the train was absolutely packed with people. I was lucky to get a seat and fortunately was only on the train for 20 minutes.

Durham you may ask. Why Durham. I didn't want a long travel day leaving the wall, it was on the main train line to London and it was a UNESCO heritage site and the location of a fairly prestigious university. The town was established by a group of displaced monks who were travelling with the remains of their patron saint St Cuthbert. When the cart carrying St. Cuthbert got stuck in 965 AD they thought that this was a good sign to stop. St. Cuthbert even though he was dead must have had his wits about as the river Wear forms a loop around a very large hill giving rise to a very defensible geographical position. They built their monastery here which when the Normans took over England a few hundred years later was expanded into an Enormous cathedral. The Normans then had to built a large castle to protect the Cathedral from the Scots. During my time here in the North I keep hearing stories about the Scots invading etc. The stories sound very similar to those I heard in Scotland a few years ago about the English invading. Fast forward a millenium and Durham is now a very pleasant university town with a beautiful Cathedral and Castle. University just started last week which seemed a little late so the students were all wandering around town looking happy and relaxed. There were rowers on the river. The sun even came out. I checked out the Cathedral-very large and impressive, walked up and down pretty well every road in the city centre walked along the river. Today I found the modern university including the Bill Bryson library named after the well known author Bill Bryson. I had a large piece of Victoria sponge cake for a coffee break and made it to the train station today by one in order to take my train to London.Read more