Durham Castle: A Norman Fortress and Bishop’s Palace in England
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Anglo-Saxon, English, Norman
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page26 sections
History
Durham Castle is a Norman fortress and former bishop’s palace in Durham, United Kingdom, rebuilt after the Norman Conquest in 1072. Standing above a bend of the River Wear, it occupied a strategic position near the eastern coastal route and within the frontier zone between England and Scotland. Its later history reflects the unusual authority of Durham’s prince-bishops, who combined religious office with substantial secular powers, including justice, taxation, military levies, and coinage.
Saxon origins and the arrival of Saint Cuthbert
A Saxon fort was established on Durham’s peninsula in the tenth century during the rule of the Saxon earl Uhtred. Its precise form is unknown, although surviving wall fragments and the ditch across the northern side of the peninsula probably belong to this early defensive phase.
In 995, monks from Lindisfarne arrived at the settlement, then known as Dunholme, carrying the relics of Saint Cuthbert while fleeing Viking attacks. They founded a cathedral for the relics in 998, and the fort was probably enlarged at about the same time. The settlement successfully resisted a Scottish attack in 1006, reinforcing the importance of its fortified position.
The Norman foundation
After William the Conqueror, the Norman ruler who seized the English throne in 1066, ordered a complete rebuilding of the fortification in 1072, construction was first supervised by Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria. Following Waltheof’s execution in 1076, Bishop Walcher continued the work. Walcher held both episcopal and comital authority, meaning that he exercised religious and territorial power, and he made the developing castle his residence. This established the long association between Durham’s bishops and the castle.
The early Norman castle served two connected purposes. It was a defensive stronghold for the relatively small Norman forces facing local rebellion, Scottish incursions, and possible Viking attacks, and it was a residence and administrative centre for the bishop. The main works, initially built largely from timber and earth, were completed by 1080. The castle also helped secure movement and commerce along the eastern coastal route.
In May 1080, Northumbrian rebels besieged the castle for four days and killed Bishop Walcher. In 1088, Bishop William de St-Calais took refuge there after the forces of William II, William the Conqueror’s successor, suppressed a rebellion against the king.
Expansion under the medieval bishops
Bishop Ranulf Flambard strengthened the defences by raising the walls, rebuilding the outer palisade, and constructing an inner wall between the cathedral’s east end and the keep. These works divided the complex into inner and outer areas. Buildings between the castle and cathedral were demolished, forming the open space now called Palace Green. The earlier timber residential tower was also replaced by a stone structure.
During the early twelfth century, the castle changed hands several times amid Scottish incursions. Warfare impoverished and depopulated the surrounding region. Bishop Hugh de Puiset later restored the castle after repeated fires, rebuilt parts of the town outside the walls, and promoted Durham as a major pilgrimage centre because of Saint Cuthbert’s relics. Pilgrimage helped the town’s economy recover.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the castle’s military importance declined as Norman rule became more firmly established, although it continued to resist Scottish attacks. It increasingly expressed the political authority of Durham’s prince-bishops. Bishop Antony Bek rebuilt parts of the complex, while Bishop Thomas Hatfield enlarged the Great Hall southwards and rebuilt the keep in its present irregular octagonal form.
Renewed conflict with Scotland led Durham’s inhabitants to extend the town walls in 1314 and 1315, protecting the market and surrounding areas that had previously stood outside the fortifications. In 1346, forces led by Bishop Hatfield repelled a Scottish invasion of Northumbria and drove the attackers north of the River Tweed.
Bishop Thomas Langley rebuilt the North Gate in the early fifteenth century, bringing the principal phase of castle fortification to an end. Thereafter, alterations focused mainly on the castle as a palace rather than on strengthening it as a fortress. Bishop Robert Neville filled part of the south-western ditch and built the Exchequer there. Bishop Richard Fox converted the southern part of the Great Hall into a four-storey residential suite and commissioned the surviving kitchen, although his proposed rebuilding of the keep was not completed.
In 1513, while Henry VIII was in France, the Scottish king James IV invaded northern England. Durham forces led by Bishop Thomas Ruthall repelled the invasion and killed the Scottish king.
Reformation and early modern transformation
The Reformation changed the castle’s institutional setting. The Durham monastic community was dissolved in 1539, and from 1541 the cathedral was administered by a dean and chapter. The bishop lost most of his former privileges, including judicial authority, while Durham came increasingly under direct royal control through the Council of the North.
During the sixteenth century, the castle passed between Catholic and Protestant control but avoided major destruction during the religious conflicts. Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall carried out extensive alterations, including a new chapel, an enlarged gatehouse, a gallery along the south wall of the North Hall, and a new courtyard well.
The accession of James VI of Scotland as James I of England in 1603 ended the long series of Anglo-Scottish conflicts in Northumbria. The castle consequently lost its remaining military importance and became primarily the ceremonial and residential palace of the bishops. Bishop Richard Neile substantially remodelled it in the 1620s, adding the Senate apartments and storage rooms beside the north side of the Great Hall.
During the English Civil War, the bishopric was abolished in 1646, and the castle was sold in 1649 to Thomas Andrews, Lord Mayor of London. The bishopric was restored in 1660. After the Restoration, the castle was considered uninhabitable, but Bishops John Cosin and Nathaniel Lord Crewe repaired it. The courtyard barbican was demolished, the surrounding ditches were finally filled, and the Black Stairs were constructed. The Great Hall and Tunstall Chapel also received more elaborate decoration.
Eighteenth-century residence and university college
The castle assumed much of its present form during the eighteenth century. The state apartments had been completed by 1780, and Bishop Thomas Thurlow’s works of 1789 reduced the keep by two upper storeys, repaired the walls, and partly demolished the dangerously leaning south wall. The present episcopal apartments and large dining hall were also created during this period.
The bishops increasingly preferred Auckland Castle, whose larger estate and gardens offered a more suitable residence. After Bishop William Van Mildert died in 1836, the prince-bishopric was abolished, the bishopric came under the Crown, and Durham Castle passed to the University of Durham. Following renovations, the university began occupying it as a college in 1837, and the college formally opened in 1840. The keep was remodelled for student accommodation by that date.
Late nineteenth-century work introduced central heating, replaced the stained-glass windows, and installed an organ in Tunstall Chapel. The western wall overlooking the River Wear began to subside and threatened to collapse. Public donations and government assistance enabled its stabilisation with underpinning.
Modern use and heritage status
The castle survived both world wars without major damage. During the Second World War, the Norman Chapel served first as a Royal Air Force command and observation post and later as a bicycle shed. It was subsequently restored to religious use.
Durham Castle and Durham Cathedral were jointly inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986 under criteria ii, iv, and vi. The designation recognises the continuing use of buildings founded soon after the Norman Conquest for more than 900 years. The castle precinct also preserves buildings connected with the civic responsibilities and privileges of the Durham Palatinate, including the Bishop’s Court, almshouses, and schools. Seventeen castle elements, including the keep, ranges, gatehouse, bastion, and twelve wall sections, have the highest English Grade I listing.
A castle museum was established in the early 1980s to supervise and display valuables associated with the building. Its collections are administered under the authority of the Durham University Senate. Durham Castle remains a working university building and the home of more than 100 students.
Remains
Durham Castle occupies the summit of a hill about 35 metres high on the northern side of Durham’s peninsula, above a bend in the River Wear. Palace Green bounds the complex to the south and separates it from Durham Cathedral. The buildings surround an irregular central courtyard and combine the defensive arrangement of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle with the rooms and ceremonial spaces of a bishop’s palace. The keep stands on an artificial mound, while inner and outer baileys, walls, palisades, and a surrounding ditch organised the wider fortified complex. Stone for the Norman buildings was cut from the cliffs below the walls and raised with winches.
Courtyard and defensive structures
Gatehouse
The entrance gatehouse retains a Norman-style vaulted arch but acquired its present form in the eighteenth century, when the architect James Wyatt added a Gothic storey for Bishop Shute Barrington. An iron-bound wooden gate originally closed the entrance; it was replaced by an iron grille in the early fifteenth century. The gatehouse continues to serve as the principal entrance to the castle.
Keep
The keep is an irregular octagonal building on a 14-metre-high mound at the eastern side of the complex. A palisade erected under Bishop Walcher preceded a timber tower enclosed by stone walls under Bishop Ranulf Flambard. Bishop Thomas Hatfield rebuilt the keep in the fourteenth century, and its upper two storeys were removed in the nineteenth century. The building is approximately 23 metres long and 20 metres wide. Three floors are connected by a central staircase, with student bedrooms above and storage rooms in the basement.
Walls and courtyard well
The so-called Norman Wall connects the keep with the Tunstall Gallery. It was created in the sixteenth century by rebuilding a thirteenth-century wall and retains medieval arrow loops. A separate wall linking the keep with the gatehouse dates from the seventeenth century.
The courtyard level rose over the centuries as new paving was laid over earlier surfaces. Excavations in the 1970s revealed an earlier well 2 metres below the present courtyard, together with the foundations of a well house and lead pipes supplying water to the Tunstall Gallery. The well was originally 22 metres deep and later filled with building debris. A small fountain stands among the eastern flower beds.
Garden Building and Bell Tower
The three-storey Garden Building stands east of the entrance. It was built in the seventeenth century under Bishop John Cosin and now accommodates university offices. The Bell Tower was built above the chapel entrance in 1705 on Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall’s commission. It has a half-octagonal plan, a western entrance, a main window lighting the internal stair, and two smaller windows illuminating a chamber above the stairs. A late nineteenth-century clock occupies the south facade, while the upper chamber contains its mechanism and a bell from Bishop Crewe’s period measuring 60 centimetres in diameter.
Chapels and northern range
Tunstall Chapel
Tunstall Chapel was built on the foundations of an earlier Norman chapel in the sixteenth century and was enlarged or modified in the seventeenth century. Four windows in its south wall provide light. Sixteenth-century choir stalls associated with Bishop Ruthall were transferred from the earlier chapel. Their finely carved misericords, small ledges beneath hinged choir seats, bear the arms of Durham’s nobility.
Carved oak panelling and the altar were installed in 1887. The central panel of the altarpiece depicts the Crucifixion. The single-aisled chapel has a ceiling supported by seven arches, five associated with Tunstall’s work and two added later under a subsequent bishop. Father Smith, a Durham organ maker, installed an organ in 1873. The chapel remains in use for college worship and other college activities.
Norman Chapel
The Norman Chapel beneath Tunstall Chapel is one of the oldest surviving parts of Durham Castle. Its exact date is uncertain, but it belongs to the late eleventh century and was probably built during Bishop Walcher’s episcopate. The small rectangular room is approximately 10 metres long and 6.3 metres wide. Six carved columns support its ceiling, and diamond-shaped stones form the floor, with the area beneath the altar raised above the rest.
The chapel combines features described as Anglian and Norman, possibly reflecting the use of local English labour. Its columns have diamond decoration, while the carved capitals show grotesque figures and animals. A column in the north-west corner bears a hunting scene in relief. Subsidence beneath the castle caused the columns to lean and weakened the building. The windows were almost entirely blocked in the fifteenth century when the keep was enlarged. After serving as a corridor to the keep until 1841 and as wartime and postwar service space, the chapel was reconsecrated in the 1950s and continues to host weekly services. Its outer walls were excavated in the early 2020s to reduce damp.
Tunstall Gallery and Black Stairs
The Tunstall Gallery, also called the North Hall or Norman Gallery, forms a major northern range and provides a passage between the Great Hall and the chapel. Its wall facing the courtyard retains Norman-style arcading, and the gallery houses museum displays.
The Black Stairs are a seventeenth-century staircase 17.5 metres high within a massive tower at the western end of the Tunstall Gallery. The inward-leaning stairs remain in use, with their capacity limited to 40 people because of structural weakness. Carved panels decorate the balustrade. Steel supports were inserted in the 1960s, and deteriorated beams were replaced.
Halls, apartments, and service buildings
Great Hall
The Great Hall, formerly known as Bek Hall, Hatfield Hall, and White Hall, occupies the western part of the complex. Built in the early fourteenth century on the site of an earlier Norman structure, it is approximately 14 metres high, 11 metres wide, and more than 30 metres long. Several columns in the crypt below survive from the earlier building.
Bishop Antony Bek built the hall, of which the entrance arch and windows in the east wall survive. Bishop Thomas Hatfield enlarged it in 1350 and added a carved wooden ceiling, later destroyed by fires, together with carved episcopal thrones at both ends. Bishop Richard Fox later separated the southern part for his apartments, removing the southern throne. Other surviving features include the carved entrance arch, episcopal coats of arms, a diamond-stone floor laid in 1663, and carved oak wall panelling.
Kitchen, pantry, and bakehouse
The kitchen was first built as an armoury under Bishop Hugh de Puiset and was converted by Bishop Richard Fox in the late fifteenth century. Its surviving fireplaces and wall-set chimneys date from that conversion. The adjoining pantry assumed its present form in 1499 and underwent little alteration after being used for storage, making it one of the oldest parts of the complex. The former bakehouse retains fifteenth-century ovens.
A wooden chest of uncertain date stands in a kitchen alcove. Local tradition associates it with the concealment of Saint Cuthbert’s relics during the Reformation. The kitchen also displays silver tableware acquired by the bishops during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Episcopal apartments and dining hall
The episcopal apartments contain some of the castle’s richest interiors. One suite was reserved for the bishop when the castle passed to the university in 1836 and remains for the bishop’s exclusive use when present. The rooms contain seventeenth-century Flemish textiles and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century furniture, including a canopy bed.
The Bishop’s Dining Hall lies at the western end of the Tunstall Gallery and is one of the largest and most elaborate rooms in the castle. It retains its dining function, although university staff now use it. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century oil paintings from the castle museum hang on its walls.
Senate apartments and Green Room
The Senate apartments became the quarters of the university administration after the castle changed ownership and retain that function. They contain seventeenth-century textiles and paintings from the castle collection. The Green Room was formed from a former episcopal chamber. Despite its name, it is painted pink and serves as a meeting room. Sketches showing episodes from the life of Saint Cuthbert decorate its walls.
Crypts and collections
Norman Crypt
The Norman Crypt extends beneath the Great Hall and was built at the same time as the Norman Chapel. Since the medieval period it has served as a food store and continues to fulfil that function.
Paintings, silver, and textiles
The castle displays more than 200 paintings, chiefly portraits of Durham’s bishops and views of the castle and city. Most were collected between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and are displayed mainly in the Tunstall Gallery and Tunstall Chapel. The collection includes works associated with George Jeffreys, J. W. Carmichael, and Hugo van der Goes, as well as paintings by unidentified local artists that show aspects of the castle’s earlier appearance.
The silver collection contains eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tableware, table candlesticks, religious objects, and sporting trophies and awards won by students. Notable pieces include the Pemberton Bowl, presented by King George IV, and salt cellars from the reigns of George II and George III. Many of these objects are displayed in the Great Hall.
Seventeenth-century Flemish tapestries hang in the episcopal and Senate apartments. Most depict biblical scenes and bear the arms of the bishop who commissioned them. Restoration during the 1970s and 1980s treated the effects of centuries of fading.
Furniture and arms
The furniture collection includes objects that remain in daily use, such as kitchen tables, chairs, dining tables, and beds. Notable pieces include a fifteenth-century kitchen table, the furniture of the episcopal apartments, the canopy bed, and seventeenth-century velvet-covered armchairs in the Senate apartments. The Tunstall Chapel choir stalls and carved misericords are also part of the collection.
The arms collection contains medieval weapons and armour, including objects associated with the period of the prince-bishops and a fourteenth-century piece identified as the oldest. Other holdings entered the castle in 1922 and include seventeenth-century spears, 28 suits of armour from the era of Oliver Cromwell, and firearms associated with the Wallsend Light Infantry, founded in 1803. Much of the collection is displayed in the Great Hall.
