Durham

The city was built on a meander of the River Wear, which surrounds the centre on three sides and creates a narrow neck on the fourth. The surrounding land is hilly, except along the Wear's flood plain to the north and south-east.

Durham was founded in 995 by Anglo-Saxon monks seeking a place safe from Viking raids to house the relics of St Cuthbert. The church the monks built lasted only a century, as it was replaced by the present Durham Cathedral after the Norman Conquest; together with Durham Castle, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the 1070s until 1836, the city was part of the County Palatine of Durham, a semi-independent jurisdiction ruled by the prince bishops of Durham which acted as a geopolitical buffer between the kingdoms of England and Scotland. In 1346, the Battle of Neville's Cross was fought half a mile west of the city, resulting in an English victory. In 1650, the cathedral was used to house Scottish prisoners after their defeat at the Battle of Dunbar.