County Durham

The magnificent landscape of Country Durham includes parts of the Pennines, the North Yorkshire Dales and the National Nature Reserves of Durham's Coastal regions.

Durham was a Roman military outpost on Hadrian's Wall. Hadrian's Wall was built around 120AD, stretching 117 km (73 miles) from the mouth of the River Tyne in the east to the Solway Firth in the west. In 1069 three years after landing in Britain, William the Conqueror finally subdued the North of England. William recognised the defensive potential of the rocky peninsula of Durham and a castle was founded there in 1072. Nine centuries later, Durham Castle remains one of England's largest and best-preserved Norman strongholds and one of the grandest Romanesque palaces.

Since 1836 it has housed the Foundation College of Durham University, the country's third oldest university after Oxford and Cambridge. In 1093 work began on a magnificent cathedral to house the shrine of St. Cuthbert.One of the greatest influences on the early Christian tradition was St. Cuthbert, the North's most revered and best loved saint. Cuthbert's story is inseparable from that of the city and County Durham. A former bishop of Lindisfarne, Cuthbert died in 687 AD and was buried on the island. His body remained there untouched, for two hundred years. In 875 AD the monks were forced to flee Lindisfarne, taking St. Cuthbert's coffin with them.

They journeyed through Northern England for 120 years, settling for a while in Chester-le-Street and Ripon. Their travels came to an end in 995 AD when, according to the legend, the coffin became immovable and the monks were told in a vision to take it to "Dun Holm" the 'hill on the island. Not knowing where this might be, they followed a milkmaid looking for her cow and she led them to the rocky peninsula of Durham. The monks built the White Church to the shelter of St. Cuthbert's body and this remained until it was pulled down in 1092 to make way for the new cathedral.

The need to carry coal to markets led to major innovations in transport. Durham was the birth place of the railways, in 1825 the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public steam passenger railway opened. The inaugural train was George Stephenson's Locomotion. Causey Arch is the oldest railway bridge still standing in the world and Tanfield Railway is the oldest existing railway in the world.

The region's history is recorded in many museums and galleries around the region but of particular note is Beamish Open Air Museum. Covering over 300 acres it records the daily lives of local people through imaginative and interactive displays.