Durham and the Battle of Neville's Cross

Tuesday 24 June 2003. I was staying in Durham for the night to speak at a conference on the following day.

It turned out that it was Durham University's Graduation Day and so the usual hotels I would use were all fully booked and I stayed at the Brown's Three Tuns Hotel on New Elvet, a road running alongside the line of the River Wear. Apparently it is now student accomodation apartments.

I had recently read a book that featured the Battle of Neville's Cross which took place on 17 October 1346. It was the second Scottish War of Independence and also fell within the 100 Years War that England was embroiled in with France. The site of the battle was only half a mile away so I set off to walk to it, not knowing whether or not there was anything to see in the way of memorials, significant street names etc.

This tree is all I found. Planted by the Neville's Cross Over 60s Club on the 650th anniversary of the battle.

I perhaps should have done a bit more research, but I knew the bare bones of the battle - King Edward III was in France with 15,000 troops and the French King Philip VI begged the Scottish King David II (son of Robert the Bruce) to invade northern England in order that Edward might withdraw troops from France, whilst thinking that the bulk of the English army was in France.

The Scottish invaded but the English still mustered an army of between 6,000-7,000 men as those in France were all from towns south of the River Humber. Men from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Northumbria had been spared the call to arms to keep the border with Scotland safe.

The English longbowmen played a valiant part in the battle. Although for many it would have been their first battle, the Lancastrian bowmen (yay!) were outstanding and after the battle were each awarded £10 (ten pounds stirling being the equivalent of £9,990 in 2023 value). As I walked back, I found this long street called Archery Rise.

I was intending to visit Durham Cathedral, but by the time I got back there it was closed. University students, dressed in their graduation robes were congregating with their parents in tow and celebrations went on into the night - as I heard from the street outside my bedroom window!

Work Index

A Night in Durham

Wednesday 8 February 2006. A night alone in a strange city! It's my first visit to Durham. I ate in a cheap Italian place, trying to ignore two university students showing themselves up by trying to sound intellectual by doing down the city, its inhabitants and the "North" in general.

I was staying at a hotel just the other side of the river and crossed over a high bridge to enter the city centre. Then a wander through some narrow streets until I eventually came to Durham Cathedral. More formally it is the Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham. It contains the relics of St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, The Venerable Bede, and also the head of St Oswald.

Durham Castle is adjacent to the cathedral and they share part of the walls. From 1075 CE the Bishops of Durham became Earls, a Prince Bishop with the power to mint coin, raise taxes and maintain an army. In return they were tasked with maintaining the border between England and Scotland.

The Dining or Great Hall dates from the early 1300s and has been enlarged and then reduced over the centuries, but still measures 98 feet long (30 metres) and is 46 feet high (14 metres). In 1832 the Bishops' residence was moved to Auckland Castle and Durham Castle was donated to Durham University, being used by University College, Durham from 1837. It wasn't as late as midnight by the way - the clock must have been stopped and the correct method to let people know not to rely on it is to set both hands to twelve. This only usually causes confusion near noon and midnight.

I have a day's course to run tomorrow so it's back into the dark streets and heading back towards the river and my hotel for the night.

The bridge over the River Wear.

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Wedding Bells in Durham

Last night we stayed over in Durham, after joining in the wedding celebrations of one of my work colleagues, Andy Stewart who married Verity amidst the wonderful setting of Durham Castle.

We motored over from Blackpool yesterday afternoon and met up for a meal with other friends from work. We had an excellent meal then a quick drink in a packed and noisy pub where I expected to be called "Grandad" at any point and then climbed the hill to the castle.

The reception was being held in a hall worthy and remeniscent of Hogwarts dining room! In fact after a few glasses of wine, I wouldn't swear that the paintings weren't wandering about and trying to converse with us...

Verity looked beautiful, Andy, every inch the proud husband. It was a good night.

This morning Fran fancied a swift look around the shops before we came back. I made sure she knew where she was going and then went back towards the river and along the bank to a sheltered spot from where I could sketch the hill and castle from the river bank.

I was under the shade of overhanging trees which was quite lucky as at one point it was raining heavily - the splashes in the river before me showing just how heavy. I hardly got wet and was able to carry on sketching.

This took about an hour to do on an A5 size sketchpad. I left a few details of shrubbery blank to finish later when Fran had found the shops she had wanted to look around were either not open or hadn't got what she wanted. I finished them off once we got home.

A good weekend!

Learning Spaces

Yesterday I was at New College Durham at a joint LSC / JISC infoNet / CEL event: Leading a New College Build.

New College Durham have completed a project which included replacing their old campus with a brand new one on the same site whilst remaining open to students, a project that caused a few challenges but which has come to an excellent conclusion.

The day included a tour of the New College campus (including the music recording studios that made my mouth water!) and the design and layout is stunning.

Not designed merely to be attractive to look at, the college took stock of how it expected learning and teaching to develop over the lifetime of the new buildings. Things are moving so fast currently, especially within the ever-developing world of new technology, that this is an almost impossible task but the design incorporated lots of innovative ideas and technologies.

Learning is much more interactive than it used to be. Whilst yesterday's students were used to lecturing staff imparting knowledge, today's students want a say in how they learn. They discuss things in groups much more and a lot of learning comes from more informal social interaction than it used to. Colleges are now incorporating lots of social spaces into their design, with comfortable seating and a mix (once seen as risky in the extreme) of refreshment outlets and IT equipment!

The staff at Durham were extremely open and honest about the challenges of their building project and the delegates of college estates and facilities directors and other senior managers were enthusiastic about what they had seen and heard.

My own organisation, JISC infoNet has a large resource for colleges and universities involved with Planning and Designing Technology-Rich Learning Spaces backed up by our core resources or infoKits on such things as Project Management, Risk Management Change Management and more.

Photograph by kind permission of New College Durham.