The Surplus to Requirements Summer Adventure starts today. First stop by train from Huddersfield is Durham. This world famous city and World Heritage Site is a very fascinating place with its narrow historical streets and buildings.
First call in Durham is Bells, fish and chip restaurant, housed in buildings dating from 15th to 17th centuries near the market place. The fish was a crispy fresh and welcome as ever for the memory of my fish selling ancestors. It’s certainly busy and popular with both locals and global visitors.
A little further on in North Bailey, St Chad’s College offers guest rooms in the summer and very nice it is too, if you get the right room key. If you don’t it’s doubly nice as you get the free work out on the stairs as everyone tries to help and eventually discover you have been given the wrong key.
Outside my window I can see the small wooden college chapel. A list in the entrance tells the visitor that of those listed on the WW1 Roll of honour, four were serving as Army Chaplains.
I had heard a lot about Treasures of St Cuthbert and had bought a ticket. It didn’t disappoint. The coffin of St Cuthbert and the things that were found in it are quite remarkable. The Anglo Saxon embroidery was not something I’d heard about before.
Although I’d been to the Cathedral before I didn’t remember it all that well. It truly is an awesome place. I started in the Galillee chapel where there is the tomb of St Bede, and walked through the nave to the place where St Cuthbert’s tomb is behind the altar. A small boy was fascinated by the crucified Jesus of the Pieta that was there. He venerated it by sliding down the shiny outstretched arm.
There were many things that interested me: the cross from The Somme in the Chapel of Remembrance to the Durham Light Infantry, the embroidery at the altars dedicated to St Hilda and St Margaret, the story of the Scots POWs kept in the Cathedral in 1650 after the Battle of Dunbar, amongst others. Although it was busy, there were many quiet places.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God