CATHEDRAL FRENZY

Thursday May 13th

In my constant search for bigger and better old cathedrals I took a 3 hour train journey to Durham yesterday. This took me through miles and miles of rolling countryside in that wonderful patchwork of green and gold edged with hedgerows. There are spring lambs all over the place and horses and cows and it's all very rustic, except when you pass through some industrialised town like Peterborough or Darlington or Doncaster. My stop was the last one before Newcastle and I arrived just after noon. I took a short taxi ride through the township of winding cobbled winding streets, not to say that this is an old fashioned place. Some of it is quaint, but there are plenty of Tescos and Waitroses and shopping malls too. What I did find very quaint is the accent of the locals...very Geordie. If you remember that TV series, "When the Boat Comes In", well it was all like that.

In ten minutes my taxi pulled up on one side of Palace Green.

In front of me the great stone mass of Durham Cathedral stood in Norman (Romanesque) majesty.

To one side, a row of very old sandstone almshouses, to the other the centuries old buildings of what is now Durham University Library. And behind me, half hidden by a stone wall covered in ivy, and overhung with blossoming fruit trees, the parapets of Durham Castle.

You could smell the history of this place. Inside the cathedral was all that it promised to be.

There have been bishops here since 995AD so this is a very old building. In fact the building was begun in 1093 and took 40yrs to complete. When you stand in the nave you are immediately struck by the sheer size of it. This is the largest Norman building in the world and when you look at the rows of massive stone columns stretching away down to the high alter, you believe it. And then you look upwards to a vaulted ceiling which seems to reach the sky. I was told the stone ribs which hold the stone ceiling in place were revolutionary for their time, as were the flying buttresses which support it from the outside.

And then you walk slowly along the the perimeters of the nave past medieval tombstones and monuments. There is a shrine to St Cuthbert, an English saint whose remains rest below the floor. He was apparently the founder of a Benedictine monastery in the tenth century.

And in the Lady Chapel, there is a black marble tomb, where lies the Venerable Bede. He was, so my friend Google tells me, an Anglo Saxon chronicler, priest and theologian, born in Durham and died in 735AD.

For a simple antipodean, it is sometimes hard to comprehend history that far back. And then there's Greek and Roman history and so much before that.

I spent so much time drinking all this in, that the clock caught up with me. I had to meet my train at 4pm so I had only half an hour to spend in Durham Castle. Because most of this building makes up accommodation for students of Durham Uni, you can't visit all the rooms, but it seemed to be very much an extension builders dream. The castle was occupied by Norman conquerors at first and they built the round tower or keep to ward off marauding Scots and rebellious locals. Then they were replaced by what were known as Prince Bishops. The theory was that they would get the respect of everyone, backed up with some military muscle when needed. This system worked apparently from 1080AD to the 19th century. And just about every bishop that held the post stuck a bit onto the building. So now there are extra walls and inner courts and long galleries all over the place. And all of them from different architectural periods. If I had to choose one place that impressed me most, it was the Great Hall. You can just imagine the banquets and the booze up that happened here over the centuries. And it is still used today, on a weekly basis, when students of the college, in black tie and dinner jackets, gather for a formal dinner. Like something out of Tom Brown's School-days or Harry Potter, the students occupy the body of the hall at long candle lit tables, while the Masters and their guests sit at "high table"looking down on them. And speaking of Harry Potter, I'm told this area has a bit of a movie history. The banquet scenes at Hogwarts were filmed in the great hall. Also the race around the cloisters which took place in Chariots of Fire, was actually filmed in the cloisters of Durham Cathedral. So there's some modern history, but it really doesn't hold a candle to St Cuthbert and St Bede.

Tomorrow (Fri) Fritha and Anthony and I fly to Madrid to meet Barbara who is coming in from South America. We only have a brief stop there for the weekend, but I expect Barbara will be too tired to do much there anyway.

Before closing I must say it has been fascinating watching the historic political events here over the past few days. Not knowing much about UK politics, I can only say that if nothing much else changes, they are at least changing the voting system from first past the post to some sort of alternative vote. Not quite preferential but it's go to be better than what they have now.