County Durham
County Durham, or Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne and Wear to the north, the North Sea to the east, North Yorkshire to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The largest settlement is Darlington.
The county has an area of and had a population of in. The centre and east of the county are more densely populated than the west, and the major settlements include Hartlepool on the south-east coast, Stockton-on-Tees in the south-east, Darlington in the south, and the city of Durham in the north-centre. Stockton-on-Tees is part of the Teesside conurbation, which extends into North Yorkshire. Barnard Castle is the largest town in the west of the county. For local government purposes the county comprises the unitary authority areas of County Durham, Darlington, Hartlepool, and part of Stockton-on-Tees. Durham County Council is part of the North East Combined Authority, and the councils of the other three areas are part of the Tees Valley Combined Authority. The part of Tyne and Wear south of the River Tyne was historically part of County Durham, and the part of Durham south of the River Tees was historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire.
The west of the county contains part of the North Pennines uplands, a national landscape. The hills are the source of the rivers Tees and Wear, which flow east and form the valleys of Teesdale and Weardale respectively. The east of the county is flatter, and the two rivers meander through it; the Tees forms the boundary with North Yorkshire in its lower reaches, and the Wear exits the county near Chester-le-Street in the north-east. The county's coast is characterised by tall limestone and dolomite cliffs and is a site of special scientific interest.
What is now County Durham was on the border of Roman Britain, and contains survivals of this era at sites such as Binchester Roman Fort. In the Anglo-Saxon period the region was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. In 995 the city of Durham was founded by monks seeking a place safe from Viking raids to house the relics of St Cuthbert. Durham Cathedral was rebuilt after the Norman Conquest, and together with Durham Castle is now a World Heritage Site. By the late Middle Ages the county was governed semi-independently by the bishops of Durham and was also a buffer zone between England and Scotland. County Durham became heavily industrialised in the nineteenth century, when many collieries opened on the Durham coalfield. The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, opened in 1825. Most collieries closed during the last quarter of the twentieth century, but the county's coal mining heritage is remembered in the annual Durham Miners' Gala.
Toponymy
The ceremonial county is officially named Durham, but the county has long been commonly known as County Durham and it is the only English county name prefixed with "County" in common usage. Its unusual naming is explained to some extent by the relationship with the Bishops of Durham, who for centuries governed Durham as a county palatine outside the usual structure of county administration in England.Early attestations of the county name include Dunelmensischira from c. 1100 and Comitatus Dunelmensis from 1344.
The situation regarding the formal name in modern local government is less clear:
- The 2009 structural change legislation created the present unitary council refers to "the county of County Durham" and names the new unitary district "County Durham" too.
- *A later amendment to that legislation refers to the "county of Durham" and the amendment allows for the unitary council to name itself "The Durham Council".
- The council retains the name as Durham County Council. With either option, the name does not include County Durham.
- The former postal county was named "County Durham" to distinguish it from the post town of Durham.
History
Anglian Kingdom of Bernicia
Around 547 CE, an Angle named Ida founded the kingdom of Bernicia after spotting the defensive potential of a large rock at Bamburgh, upon which many a fortification was thenceforth built. Ida was able to forge, hold and consolidate the kingdom; although the native British tried to take back their land, the Angles triumphed and the kingdom endured.Kingdom of Northumbria
In 604 CE, Ida's grandson Æthelfrith forcibly merged Bernicia and Deira to create the Kingdom of Northumbria. In time, the realm was expanded, primarily through warfare and conquest; at its height, the kingdom stretched from the River Humber to the Forth. Eventually, factional fighting and the rejuvenated strength of neighbouring kingdoms, most notably Mercia, led to Northumbria's decline. The arrival of the Vikings hastened this decline, and the Scandinavian raiders eventually claimed the Deiran part of the kingdom in 867. The land that would become County Durham now sat on the border with the Great Heathen Army, a border which today still forms the boundaries between the historic counties of Yorkshire and County Durham.Viking settlement petered out at the Tees and the lands north thereof lay outside of the Danelaw. The House of Bamburgh, successors of the Kings of Bernicia and Northumbria, retained control north of the Tyne; between the Tyne and the Tees emerged the Community of St. Cuthbert or Haliwerfolc, successors of the See of Lindisfarne. The House of Wessex absorbed the Kingdom of York into the unified English Kingdom in 954 and claimed overlordship over Northumbria. However, the lands north of the Tees remained outside the governmental frontiers of the English realm, thus Bamburgh and the Haliwerfolc went on to become contested buffer states between England and Scotland.
City of Durham founded
In 995 CE, St Cuthbert's community, who had been transporting Cuthbert's remains around, partly in an attempt to avoid them falling into the hands of Viking raiders, settled at Dunholm on a site that was defensively favourable due to the horseshoe-like course of the River Wear. St Cuthbert's remains were placed in a shrine in the White Church, which was originally a wooden structure but was eventually fortified into a stone building.Once the City of Durham had been founded, the Bishops of Durham gradually acquired the lands that would become County Durham. Bishop Aldhun began this process by procuring land in the Tees and Wear valleys, including Norton, Stockton, Escomb and Aucklandshire in 1018. In 1031, King Canute gave Staindrop to the Bishops. This territory continued to expand, and was eventually given the status of a liberty. Under the control of the Bishops of Durham, the land had various names: the "Liberty of Durham", "Liberty of St Cuthbert's Land" "the lands of St Cuthbert between Tyne and Tees" or "the Liberty of Haliwerfolc".
The bishops' special jurisdiction rested on claims that King Ecgfrith of Northumbria had granted a substantial territory to St Cuthbert on his election to the see of Lindisfarne in 684. In about 883 a cathedral housing the saint's remains was established at Chester-le-Street and Guthfrith, King of York granted the community of St Cuthbert the area between the Tyne and the Wear, before the community reached its final destination in 995, in Durham.
Following the Norman invasion, the administrative machinery of government extended only slowly into northern England. Northumberland's first recorded Sheriff was Gilebert from 1076 until 1080 and a 12th-century record records Durham regarded as within the shire. However the bishops disputed the authority of the sheriff of Northumberland and his officials, despite the second sheriff for example being the reputed slayer of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scots. The crown regarded Durham as falling within Northumberland until the late thirteenth century.
County Palatine of Durham
Matters regarding the bishopric of Durham came to a head in 1293 when the bishop and his steward failed to attend proceedings of quo warranto held by the justices of Northumberland. The bishop's case went before parliament, where he stated that Durham lay outside the bounds of any English shire and that "from time immemorial it had been widely known that the sheriff of Northumberland was not sheriff of Durham nor entered within that liberty as sheriff... nor made there proclamations or attachments". The arguments appear to have prevailed, as by the fourteenth century Durham was accepted as a liberty which received royal mandates direct. In effect it was a private shire, with the bishop appointing his own sheriff. The area eventually became known as the "County Palatine of Durham".Sadberge was a liberty, sometimes referred to as a county, within Northumberland. In 1189 it was purchased for the see but continued with a separate sheriff, coroner and court of pleas. In the 14th century Sadberge was included in Stockton ward and was itself divided into two wards. The division into the four wards of Chester-le-Street, Darlington, Easington and Stockton existed in the 13th century, each ward having its own coroner and a three-weekly court corresponding to the hundred court. The diocese was divided into the archdeaconries of Durham and Northumberland. The former is mentioned in 1072, and in 1291 included the deaneries of Chester-le-Street, Auckland, Lanchester and Darlington.
The term palatinus is applied to the bishop in 1293, and from the 13th century onwards the bishops frequently claimed the same rights in their lands as the king enjoyed in his kingdom.