THE BOLD BEAUTY OF DURHAM.

Southland Times, Issue 21662, 26 March 1932, Page 11

THE BOLD BEAUTY OF DURHAM.

There are few cities in our noble island which are qualified to command a deeper interest in the English heart than Durham, . .. .' The memory, and everything which keeps alive the memory of other times, are still there. There is this characteristic of most of our cathedral towns, that they have changed less in their outward aspect than others; and you would imagine that Durham had not changed at all. As we remarked of Winchester, it has grown not in bulk, but in a grey and venerable dignity. The ancient cathedral, the ancient castle, the ancient houses, all are there, The narrow and winding streets, nobody has presumed to alter them; the up-hill and the down-hill, no one has presumed to level them. The very bridges, built by Flambard and Pudsey, upwards of six and seven hundred years ago, are still there. Whichever way you approach Durham, you are first struck with the great central tower of the cathedral peeping over the hills that envelop the city. It looks colossal, massy, and silent. Every traveller must be sensibly impressed with the bold beauty of Durham in the first view. As he emerges from some defile in those hills which, farther off, hid from him all but thrjt one great tower, he sees before him a wide, open valley, in the centre of which a fine mount stands crowned with the ancient clustered houses of Durham; the turrets and battlements of its old and now restored castle rising above them; and again, above all, soaring high into the air, the noble towers and pinnacles of its Norman minster.

Around recede in manifold forms tho higher hills, as if intended by nature tc give at once beauty and retirement to this splendid seat of ancient religion. From various points of these hills, the city looks quite magnificent. The old town, with its red roofs, runs along the ridges of the lower hills, and these higher ones, aro thrown into knolls and dells, with their green crofts and wooded clumps and lines of trees. The whole surrounding scenery, in fact, is beautiful. My visit there was in the middle of May. The grass had a delicious freshness of the eye; the foliage of the trees was of spring’s most delicate green; and the-bluebells and primroses, which the hot weather in April had entirely, a month before, withered up in the south, were there in aburidance in all their dewy and fragrant beauty. Through all the finer seasons of the year, however, the environs of Durham are delightful. You may climb hills, descend into woody dells, follow the course of a little stream, as its bright waters and flowery banks attract you, and never find yourselves out of the way. In all directions, as lines radiating from a centre, deep old lanes stretch off from the city, along which you may wander, hidden from view of everything but the high bosky banks, and overhanging trees and intervening sky. Other lanes, as deep, and as sweetly rustic and secluded, W’ind away right and left, leading you to some peep of antiquated oottagc, or old mill, or glance over hollow glades to far-off Lulls, and ever and anon bringing you out on the heights to a fresh and striking view of that clustered city, its castled turrets, and majestic cathedral. —William Howitt, in “Visits to Remarkable Places.”