Durham Cathedral, Durham

Pilgrimage routes converge on Durham Cathedral from every direction, including four branches of the Northern Saints Way and a one-day walk from Chester-le-Street

‍Highlights

• St Cuthbert’s intact shrine with St Oswald’s head
• The Venerable Bede’s intact shrine
• Saxon coffin and cross of St Cuthbert
• Perfect Norman cathedral
• Holy well

The solidity of Durham Cathedral says everything. Its mighty columns and sheer stone walls are part homage to God and part defense of its most sacred treasures. The relics of three ancient saints lie here – so holy that Britain’s most perfect Norman cathedral was built to honour them.

St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede have lain here for 1,000 years. One is the country’s most revered monastic leader, the other its foremost Christian writer and historian. Their tombs are easy to find, at opposite ends of the cathedral, and open to casual visitors and dedicated pilgrims alike. The head of a third, St Oswald, King of Northumbria, is buried with St Cuthbert.

Even without shrines and relics, Durham’s saints would be among the most revered in Britain. The fact that their tombs survive puts Durham Cathedral into the top league of Christian pilgrimage sites anywhere in the world.

The cathedral sits in a wide green on a vantage point above the River Wear. Its size is magnified by the lack of surrounding buildings. It is the most complete and well-preserved Norman cathedral in the country, a World Heritage site. St Cuthbert’s relics came here after being carried across northern Britain, escaping from Viking raids at Lindisfarne and then Chester-le-Street. When the monks reached Durham in 995, the coffin became miraculously immovable. So they stopped and built the first church here, ultimately replaced in 1093 by the current cathedral building.

St Cuthbert’s relics and St Oswald’s head are buried under a simple stone slab at the east end of the building, behind the high altar. This area of the church is called the feretory, which means a shrine chapel. It has been kept simple, with candles being the only adornment.

I visited several times while researching this book. There were always visitors at the shrine, whatever the time of year, standing peacefully alongside. What people do at a saint’s grave is entirely personal, but I imagine many come to ask for the saint’s intercessions, for his prayers, as was traditional. St Cuthbert is known as the ‘Wonder Worker of Britain’.

Britain’s churches now operate on a parish system, but in the earliest years, it was monasteries that spread and nurtured the faith, minsters in name and in practice. St Cuthbert only served as abbot of Lindisfarne for two years. His huge personal charm, along with his kindness and frequent miracles, made him immensely popular with monks and the people alike. He eventually retreated to Inner Farne Island and died there in 687.

Bede’s grave is found in the Galilee Chapel, at the far western end of the cathedral. It is a simple black limestone slab, engraved with his name in Saxon letters and an inscription stating that his body is here. His body was stolen from its grave in Jarrow around 1020 and brought to Durham. He was originally buried with St Cuthbert but was given his own shrine in the Galilee Chapel in 1370. Even the Reformation failed to have much of an impact: his body was simply reburied in the chapel without a shrine structure above. He was placed in his current tomb shrine in 1831, one of the earliest acts of the Anglo-Catholic revival.

Bede is not merely a saint, but Venerable. It is the church’s highest accolade: he is a church father, on a par with St Augustine, St Bernard of Clairvaux, St Basil, and Pope Gregory the Great. There are only 33 in Christian history, and Bede is the only Englishman on the list. He even gets a name check in Dante’s Paradise.

The Venerable Bede was an outstanding scholar at a time when Britain was lost in the Dark Ages. He didn’t merely change the course of early English history, he is early English history. Anyone who has scratched around through other early medieval records and saints’ Lives will know there is simply nothing to compare to his books. For more on his achievements, see his entry at Jarrow, the monastery where he spent his entire adult life (page 411).

The inscription above his grave is taken from one of his books. The script is hard to read but goes as follows: “Christ is the morning star who, when the night of this world is past, brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day.” He wrote more pithy and memorable sentences than that, but it does reflect the way Bede’s entire worldview was oriented around Christ.

Elsewhere in the Galilee chapel, visible by the north doorway into the main cathedral, is a 12th-century wall painting thought to show St Cuthbert. A fragmentary image of St Oswald is nearby, the top of his head missing. Incidentally, St Bede and St Cuthbert probably never met, despite their joint veneration at Durham. St Cuthbert died in 687 when Bede was about 14 years old. Bede did, however, write two Lives of St Cuthbert in 720, one in verse and one in prose, which cemented the link between them.

After the two shrines, the next holy places to visit are in the Open Treasure exhibition rooms. They contain the 7th-century wooden coffin of St Cuthbert. This is just about the only piece of carved wood surviving from the Saxon era and is in astonishingly good condition. St Cuthbert’s holy body was removed from this coffin in 1827 and reburied in a new coffin, where it lies today. Those who saw his body described it as incorrupt: if the state of his wooden coffin is anything to go by, this miracle seems to have supporting evidence. The coffin has one of the first known images in Western art of the Blessed Virgin with Child, depicted at one end. You can walk right around the coffin in its display case and admire its many Christian engravings, simple lines etched in the wood.

Other grave goods were removed along with the coffin. These include St Cuthbert’s gold pectoral cross, an iconic object reproduced in dozens of publications and logos, particularly in the north-east. Some Anglo-Saxon embroidery, probably donated by King Athelstan, was added to the coffin in around 930. The exhibition has a high-quality copy of the Lindisfarne Gospels too; the original is kept at the British Library although it did return here for an exhibition in 2013. Another book associated with St Cuthbert, the Stonyhurst Gospel, might also be here when you visit since the British Library intends to split its display time roughly half and half with the cathedral. This little Gospel book was removed from his grave in the 12th century and was in private hands for many years until the British Library bought it in 2012.

There is also a gilded iron ring on display, which was found in Bede’s grave when it was opened in 1831.

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Britain’s Holiest Place? Saints buried in Durham Cathedral‍

Several other important saints were buried at the cathedral, though none of them has a shrine there now. They include, with dates of death in brackets:

• St Boisil (661) abbot of Melrose Abbey and St Cuthbert’s teacher
• St Edbert (698) bishop of Lindisfarne after St Cuthbert
• St Ethilwold (699) hermit on Inner Farne Island after St Cuthbert
• St Edfrith (721) author and artist of the Lindisfarne Gospels
• St Billfrith (8th century) hermit and binder of the Lindisfarne Gospels
• St Baldred (8th century) hermit who lived on Bass Rock (page 546)
• St Ceolwulf (8th century) king of Northumbria and later monk on Lindisfarne

St Cuthbert entered monastic life at Melrose in Scotland (page 586). Bede was born and lived in Jarrow. Only its lack of a direct Welsh connection prevents an unambiguous declaration that Durham is the holiest place in Britain. The travel writer Bill Bryson wrote in Notes from a Small Island with characteristic directness: “I unhesitatingly give Durham my vote for best cathedral on planet Earth.”

If Durham Cathedral isn’t a holy place, then nowhere is. The cathedral has introduced a pilgrim gallery in recent years, celebrating its enduring spiritual attraction and witness to visitors from around the world.

Other things to do while in Durham

There is a holy well dedicated to St Cuthbert hidden below Durham Cathedral. It sits on a steep bank beside the river, accessible from the riverside footpath running below the cathedral’s west end. So many guides describe this well as nearly impossible to locate. It is, in fact, one of the easiest to find if you have reasonable directions. Whether it is worth the effort is another question. The well was covered in graffiti, full of rubbish, and overgrown when I visited. On the other hand, the water still flows, and it is within 100m or so of the mighty cathedral.

It does not have any particular tradition relating to St Cuthbert, because he did not come to Durham during his lifetime. It could have been used by the early monastic community, however, since it is nearer than the River Wear, and less of a climb too. The well was rebuilt during the 17th century, a brave time to start reintroducing Catholic traditions. Perhaps the restoration of England’s monarch in 1660 was seen as a green light for such practices to return: the date on the inscription is partly illegible, 16-something. It was probably designed to provide drinking water since there is only a small basin.

Directions‍

Durham Cathedral

South Bailey, Durham DH1 3EH

www.durhamcathedral.co.uk

W3W: laws.home.nunsGPS: 54.7737N 1.5770W (cathedral)

W3W: clay.return.chop

GPS: 54.7734N 1.5781W (well)‍

The cathedral does not currently charge an entrance fee for the main building, but you need a ticket to see all the Open Treasure rooms. The cathedral is open to visitors every day, closing Mon–Sat at 6 pm, Sun 5:30 pm. Open Treasure is open Mon–Sat 10 am–5 pm; Sun 12:30 pm–5 pm (last entry 1 hour before). Tickets £7.50 adults, £2.50 children over 5. Check the website before planning a visit because the exhibition closes at times for up to a week.

To find St Cuthbert’s Well, walk from the cathedral towards the castle. Turn left down the alleyway immediately after the first row of buildings. Go to the end and turn right, following the footpath downhill. At the bottom, turn left and walk along the riverside for 300m, and the well house is visible halfway up the slope on your left, just after passing the cathedral’s twin towers. Concrete steps lead up to it, overgrown when I visited. You can scramble up the bank instead.