For many tourists Durham is just a place to pass through to get from York's tearooms to Edinburgh's tartan. Thanks to two recent accolades that's about to change, says Harry Pearson.
View to remember ... so why have so many travellers never heard of Durham? Photograph: Malcom Fife/zefa/Corbis
On any GNER train along the east coast mainline one thing can be guaranteed during the tourist season. When the train pulls into a small station in north-east England a group of US holidaymakers will first gasp at the view across to the battlements of a splendid castle and next begin frantically scanning their maps and Fodor's guides and asking, "Where is this place?" Or as the travellers' compatriot Bill Bryson once put it: "Why didn't anybody tell me about Durham?" On the traditional route around Britain followed by many visitors to these shores nothing exists between York and Edinburgh. It is just land you must pass through to get from tearooms to tartan.
Two prestigious accolades for the capital of what local road signs like to trumpet as "The Land of the Prince Bishops", along with Bill Bryson's praise (he's now chancellor of the university) could change all that and turn Durham into a major destination for travellers. As someone who visits the city on the banks of the River Wear (not the Tyne, despite what the singer Roger Whitaker might have warbled to the world) at least once a week I'd give the decision of The Royal Bank of Scotland and the readers of Conde Nast Traveller a qualified thumbs up.
The centre of Durham is indeed magnificent. Cobbled streets run between Georgian houses (most of them now student halls), ancient bridges arch across the river which coils around the city walls like a textbook illustration of an ox bow, Fred Dibner fans will love the towering railway viaduct and the cathedral is fantastic. Take a look at it at night from South Street on the west bank of the river and I defy you not to be impressed. The interior is just as wonderful. You can spend a day exploring it and never run out of things to look at.
The problem is that the centre of Durham is very, very small - a kind of bijou York. If there are only a handful of good restaurants and a few stylish shops here that is because there are not that many restaurants and shops to start off with.
Durham centre is hemmed in between the river (which is beautiful) and a ring road (which isn't). Beyond that - though the new Gala Theatre complex has a trendy elegance - there is not much you'd want to look at, the city having fallen prey to a particular strand of post-war regenerative brutalism. (One of two of the uglier buildings were the work of John Poulson, the disgraced Yorkshire architect whose relationship with north-east Labour party bigwigs inspired Our Friends In The North). It would be difficult to find two buildings that more thoroughly defy any argument in favour of progress than Durham Cathedral and the Durham Passport Office, which occupies a prime site on the river.
Don't get me wrong: Durham is a great place for a day out, maybe even a weekend. The people are cheery and kind, and there's a happy buzz about the place almost everywhere - except possibly outside the pubs down by the bus station. Visit Durham by all means. Just don't go expecting Barcelona is what I'm saying.
