Durham and its Cathedral - highlight of northern England

Durham's Market Place retains the same plotting the prince bishop gave it when he moved villagers here in about 1100; volunteers are on hand to provide maps and help tourists

The only way to see Durham Castle is on a guided tour so I paid 5 pounds and took the informative tour; you don't actually go into the highest part of the castle (on right) since it is now a dorm

Cool wooden toad at Crook Hall; the Hall is one of the oldest inhabited homes (13th c) in Durham and has 5 acres of gardens

The cloisters at Durham Cathedral which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the cathedral recently appeared in the film Avengers: Endgame

The Illumination Window was added to Durham Cathedral earlier this year in memory of a 21-year-old college student who died from a cardiac condition

This incredible replica of Durham Cathedral is made up of 300,000 Lego bricks, standing 5 ft 6 in tall and 12 ft 6 in long; it was an ingenuous fund raising project with each pound given adding a brick

The 12th century Elvet Bridge led to a town market; it's very long with 17 arches (the river flows under only 4 of them) and was designed to avoid riverside muck and steep inclines; Durham is a hilly city of 48,000 residents

Nathaniel Hawthorne - I paused upon the bridge, and admired and wondered at the beauty of this scene...it was grand, venerable, and sweet, all at once; I never saw so lovely and magnificent a scene, nor, being content with this, do I care to see a better

I paid to see the Monks' Dormitory at Durham Cathedral (photography wasn't allowed so this shot is from google images); with its massive beamed ceiling, the room was astonishing considering it was built between 1398 and 1404

I was impressed that in the centuries since the Durham Cathedral was built, the green space along the river has been retained separating the historical town from more modern development

This is the Millennium Window at Durham Cathedral which was installed in 1995 to celebrate its 1000th anniversary; the window depicts some events in that long history

Thomas Hatfield's tomb, he was bishop of Durham (1345-1381), was the only tomb in Durham Cathedral to escape the Reformation unharmed; Hatfield founded Durham College (now called Trinity College) at Oxford

The Shrine of the Venerable Bede who is considered the father of English history; he died in 735 and his bones were brought to Durham in 1022

Durham is sister cities with Durham NC, where I was born; former Prime Minister Tony Blair attended middle school here in Durham

Originally glazed in the 15th century, the present Rose Window in Durham Cathedral dates from the late 19th century, and depicts Christ surrounded by the apostles, in turn surrounded by the 24 elders from Revelations

The Palace Green was the site of the original 11th century Saxon town, filling this green between the castle and an earlier church; the cathedral has the highest bell tower in Europe (218 feet)

The Pieta, 1981, is made of beech wood and depicts the dead Christ alongside his grieving mother Mary; it was in the York Minster in 1984 and escaped the fire but was splattered with molten lead falling from the roof

Durham Cathedral holds the relics of Saint Cuthbert which were brought here by monks in the 9th century; as a result, the cathedral has been a popular pilgrimage site

Durham Cathedral, begun in 1093, is regarded as one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Europe; this cloister featured in the first two Harry Potter films

Durham Cathedral has arguably Europe's best Romanesque nave which is particularly harmonious since it was built in only 40 years; Durham sustained no damage during WW2

These townhouses are representative of how most locals live; I stayed above a pub on a busy street where I had to keep the window open to cool my non-air-conditioned room

Some attribute the city's name to the legend of the Dun Cow and the milkmaid who in legend guided the monks of Lindisfarne carrying the body of Saint Cuthbert to the site of the present city in 995 AD

Durham Regatta has been held on the River Wear since 1834 and is the second oldest regatta in Britain; the city is home to the University of Durham which is the third oldest in the UK after Oxford and Cambridge

John Wessington was educated at Oxford and became prior of Durham Cathedral; he originally came from the village of Washington in County Durham and changed his family name to that of his birth village

Durham Cathedral towers over everything else in the town; Bill Bryson has described it as the best cathedral on planet Earth

Crook Hall still had some nice blooms; the Brits favorite word seems to be lovely - it is used similarly to nice or good and seems all-encompassing