Durham Cathedral

    Durham Cathedral was built in the late 11th and early 12th centuries to house the relics of St. Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede. It attests to the importance of the early Benedictine monastic community and is the largest and finest example of Norman architecture in England. The innovative audacity of its vaulting foreshadowed Gothic architecture. Behind the cathedral stands the castle, an ancient Norman fortress which was the residence of the prince-bishops of Durham

    Durham Cathedral, begun in 1093 and completed toward 1130, is the definitive building of the Anglo-Norman Romanesque.  Its scale is enormous, some 400 feet in length and its forms overpowering.

    The rib vault covering of Durham Cathedral is the oldest example that has survived. The plan of the building was Romanesque and the architect decided to adopt this procedure from the first. Between 1093 and 1104 the choir and the apse were similarly vaulted, and subsequently the rest of the cathedral.