Durham Cathedral

Wikipedia contributors · CC BY-SA · EN · 04/10/2026

Durham Cathedral, formally the , is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Durham, England. The cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of Durham and is the mother church of the diocese of Durham. It also contains the shrines of the Anglo-Saxon saints Cuthbert and Bede. There are daily Church of England services at the cathedral, and it received 393,090 visitors in 2024. It is a grade I listed building and forms part of the Durham Castle and Cathedral World Heritage Site.

The cathedral is the successor to the Anglo-Saxon Lindisfarne Priory, which was established 635 but abandoned in 875 in the face of Viking raids. The monks settled at Chester-le-Street from 882 until 995, when they moved to Durham. The cathedral remained a monastery until it was dissolved in 1541, since when it has been governed by a dean and chapter. The cathedral precinct formed part of Durham Castle from the eleventh century. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms the cathedral housed 3,000 Scottish prisoners of war, 1,700 of whom died in the building.

A substantial part of the present building was completed between 1093 and 1133, replacing the Anglo-Saxon "White Church". It is a significant example of the Romanesque architectural style, and the nave ceiling is the earliest surviving example of a pointed rib vault. The Galilee chapel was added to the west end of the cathedral in the 1170s, and the western towers built in approximately 1200. The east end was expanded in the Early English Gothic style in the 1230s, and the Perpendicular Gothic central tower was built in two stages in the fifteenth century. Important furnishings include the medieval bishop's throne and Neville screen, Prior Castell's Clock, and the seventeenth-century choir stalls and font cover installed by Bishop Cosin. Many of the monastic buildings survive; the monks' refectory now contains part of the cathedral library, which holds significant collections dating back to the sixth century.

History

Anglo-Saxon

The See of Durham takes its origins from the Diocese of Lindisfarne, founded by Saint Aidan at the behest of Oswald of Northumbria in about 635, which was translated to York in 664. The see was reinstated at Lindisfarne in 678 by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Among the many saints who originated at Lindisfarne Priory, the greatest was Saint Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne from 685 until his death in 687, who is central to the development of Durham Cathedral.

After repeated Viking raids, the monks fled from Lindisfarne in 875, carrying Saint Cuthbert's relics with them. The diocese of Lindisfarne remained itinerant until 882, when the monks resettled at Chester-le-Street, 60 miles south of Lindisfarne and 6 miles north of Durham. The see remained at Chester-le-Street until 995, when further Viking incursions once again caused the monks to move with their relics. According to the local legend of the Dun Cow and the saint's hagiography, the monks followed two milk maids who were searching for a dun-coloured cow and found themselves on a peninsula formed by a loop in the River Wear. Thereupon, Cuthbert's coffin became immovable, which was taken as a sign that the new shrine should be built on that spot, which became the City of Durham. A more prosaic set of reasons for the selection of the peninsula is its highly defensible position, and that a community established there would enjoy the protection of the Earl of Northumbria, with whom the bishop at this time, Aldhun, had strong family connections. Today the street leading from The Bailey past the cathedral's eastern towers up to Palace Green is named Dun Cow Lane due to the miniature dun cows which used to graze in the pastures nearby.

Initially, a very simple temporary structure was built from local timber to house the relics of Saint Cuthbert. The shrine was then transferred to a sturdier, probably still wooden, building known as the White Church. This church was itself replaced three years later in 998 by a stone building also known as the White Church, which in 1018 was complete except for its tower. Durham soon became a site of pilgrimage, encouraged by the growing cult of Saint Cuthbert. King Canute was one of the early pilgrims, and granted many privileges and estates to the Durham monks. The defensible position, flow of money from pilgrims and power embodied in the church at Durham all encouraged the formation of a town around the cathedral, which established the core of the city.

Norman

The present cathedral was designed and built under William de St-Calais (also known as William of St. Carilef). In 1083 he founded the Benedictine Priory of St. Cuthbert at Durham and having ejected the secular canons (and their wives and children) who had been in charge of the church and shrine of St Cuthbert there, replaced them with monks from the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. The extensive lands of the church he divided between his own bishopric and the new Priory. He appointed Aldwin as the first prior.

Bishop William of St. Calais demolished the old Saxon church, and on 11 August 1093, together with Prior Turgot of Durham (Aldwin's successor), he laid the foundation stone of the great new cathedral. The monks continued at their own expense to build the monastic buildings while the bishop took the responsibility for completing the building of the cathedral. Stone for the new buildings was cut from the cliffs below the walls and moved up using winches. The primary reason for the cathedral was to house the bodies of St. Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede.

Since that time many major additions and reconstructions of parts of the building have been made, but the greater part of the structure remains the original Norman structure. Construction of the cathedral began in 1093, at the eastern end. The choir was completed by 1096. At the death of Bishop William of St. Calais on 2 January 1096, the Chapter House was ready enough to be used as his burial place. In 1104 the remains of St. Cuthbert were transferred with great ceremony to the new shrine in the new cathedral. The monks continued to look after the Shrine of St Cuthbert until the dissolution of the monasteries.

Work proceeded on the nave, the walls of which were finished by 1128, and the high vault by 1135. The chapter house was built between 1133 and 1140 (partially demolished in the 18th century). William of St. Carilef died in 1096 before the building was complete and passed responsibility to his successor, Ranulf Flambard, who also built Framwellgate Bridge, the earliest crossing of the River Wear from the town. Three bishops, William of St. Carilef, Ranulf Flambard and Hugh de Puiset, are all buried in the now rebuilt chapter house.

In the 1170s Hugh de Puiset, after a false start at the eastern end where subsidence and cracking prevented work from continuing, added the Galilee Chapel at the west end of the cathedral in 1175.

The five-aisled building occupies the position of a porch and functioned as a Lady chapel with the great west door being blocked during the Medieval period by an altar to the Virgin Mary. The door is now blocked by the tomb of Bishop Thomas Langley. The Galilee Chapel also holds the remains of the Venerable Bede. The main entrance to the cathedral is on the northern side, facing the castle.

In 1228 Richard le Poore, Bishop of Salisbury, was translated to Durham, having just rebuilt Salisbury Cathedral in the Gothic style. At that moment the eastern end of Durham Cathedral was in urgent need of repair and the proposed eastern extension had failed. Le Poore employed the architect Richard Farnham to design an eastern terminal for the building in which many monks could say the Daily Office simultaneously. The resulting building was the Chapel of the Nine Altars. In 1250, the original roof of the cathedral was replaced by a vault which is still in place.

The towers also date from the early 13th century, but the central tower was damaged by lightning and replaced in two stages in the 15th century, the master masons being Thomas Barton and John Bell.

The bishop of Durham was the temporal lord of the County Palatine of Durham. The bishop competed for power with the prior of Durham, a great landowner who held his own courts for his free tenants. An agreement dated about 1229, known as Le Convenit was entered into to regulate the relationship between the two magnates.

The Shrine of Saint Cuthbert was located in the eastern apsidal end of the cathedral. The location of the inner wall of the apse is marked on the pavement and Saint Cuthbert's tomb is covered by a simple slab. However, an unknown monk wrote in 1593:

Dissolution

During the English Reformation King Henry VIII seized all churches, monasteries, priories and convents owned by the Roman Catholic Church. Durham Cathedral became an Anglican house of worship. Saint Cuthbert's tomb was destroyed in 1538 by order of King Henry VIII, and the monastery's wealth was handed over to the king. The body of the saint was exhumed, and, according to the Rites of Durham, was discovered to be uncorrupted. It was reburied under a plain stone slab now worn smooth by the knees of pilgrims, but the ancient paving around it remains intact. Two years later, on 31 December 1540, the Benedictine monastery at Durham was dissolved, and the last Prior of Durham, Hugh Whitehead, became the first dean of the cathedral's secular chapter.

17th century

After the Battle of Dunbar in September 1650, Durham Cathedral was used by Parliamentarian forces as a makeshift prison to hold up to 3,000 Scottish prisoners of war. An estimated 1,700 prisoners died while imprisoned in the cathedral, as they were kept in poor conditions and were lacking in food, water or heat. The prisoners destroyed much of the cathedral woodwork for firewood, but Prior Castell's Clock, which featured the Scottish thistle, was spared. Dead prisoners were buried in unmarked graves, and the survivors were transported as indentured servants to the American colonies.

Bishop John Cosin (in office 1660–1672), previously a canon of the cathedral, set about restoring the damage and refurnishing the building with new stalls, the litany desk, and the towering canopy over the font. An oak screen to carry the organ was added at this time to replace a stone screen pulled down in the 16th century. On the remains of the old refectory, Dean John Sudbury founded a library of early printed books.

18th and 19th centuries

During the 18th century the Deans of Durham often held another position in the south of England and after spending the statutory time in residence, would depart southward to manage their affairs. Consequently, after Cosin's refurbishment, there was little by way of restoration or rebuilding. When work commenced again on the building, it was not always of a sympathetic nature. In 1777 the architect George Nicholson, having completed Prebends' Bridge across the Wear, persuaded the dean and chapter to let him smooth off much of the outer stonework of the cathedral, thereby considerably altering its character. His successor William Morpeth demolished most of the Chapter House. In 1794 James Wyatt drew up plans to transform the building, including the demolition of the Galilee Chapel, but the chapter later decided against many of the intended changes. Wyatt renewed the 15th-century tracery of the Rose Window, inserting plain glass to replace what had been blown out in a storm.

In 1829 the Dean and Chapter authorised the engraving of a meridian line upon the floor and wall of the north cloister. A circular aperture about 1 in in the tracery of the adjoining window about 10 ft above the level of the floor directs a beam of sunlight to fall upon the line at the precise time when the sun passes the meridian. It was constructed by William Lloyd Wharton, of Dryburn in the city, and Mr Carr, then Head Master of Durham School. In 1847 the architect Anthony Salvin removed Cosin's wooden organ screen, opening up the view of the east end from the nave, and in 1858 he restored the cloisters.

The Victorian restoration of the cathedral's tower in 1859–60 was by the architect George Gilbert Scott, working with Edward Robert Robson (who went on to serve as Clerk of Works at the cathedral for six years). In 1874 Scott was responsible for the marble choir screen and pulpit in the Crossing. In 1892 Scott's pupil Charles Hodgson Fowler rebuilt the Chapter House as a memorial to Bishop Joseph Barber Lightfoot. The great west window, depicting the Tree of Jesse, was the gift of Dean George Waddington in 1867. It is the work of Clayton and Bell, who were also responsible for the Te Deum window in the south transept (1869), the Four Doctors window in the north transept (1875), and the Rose Window of Christ in Majesty (1876). There is also a statue of William Van Mildert (1826–1836), the last bishop with palatine powers, and driving force behind the foundation of Durham University.

20th century

In the 1930s, under the inspiration of Dean Cyril Alington, work began on restoring the Shrine of Saint Cuthbert behind the high altar as an appropriate focus of worship and pilgrimage, and was resumed after World War II. The four candlesticks and overhanging tester (1950) were designed by Ninian Comper. Two large batik banners representing Saints Cuthbert and Oswald, added in 2001, are the work of Thetis Blacker. Elsewhere in the building the 1930s and 1940s saw the addition of several new stained glass windows by Hugh Ray Easton. Mark Angus's Daily Bread window in the north side of the nave, dates from 1984. In the Galilee Chapel a wooden statue of the Annunciation by the Polish artist Josef Pyrz was added in 1992, the same year as Leonard Evetts' Stella Maris window.

Source and attribution

Adapted from “Durham Cathedral” by English Wikipedia contributors. Main paragraphs and sections are retained; tables, reference markers and technical markup are omitted. This is an encyclopedic adaptation, not a personal review. Original revision and contributor history ↗. Text is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗. Check current visitor access, tickets and transport with the relevant operator.