Sites for sore eyes
“goose city”. There are dozens of them honking on the banks of the lake by the boat jetties!
The posh university city of Durham is just under an hour’s drive. Parking down in the centre, we walked up the steep, twisting, cobbled streets filled with beautiful shops and restaurants to Romanesque Durham Cathedral, which is very proud of its renovated central tower. We were warned about its 325 spiral steps stretching 218ft to the roof.
It sounds like a breeze when you say it. Doing it is rather more difficult and there’s a one-way system in place as the steps at the top are eye-wateringly narrow.
Hang on to your hats when you reach the slightly pitched roof – it’s breezy up there, but on a clear day you can see all the way to the Angel of the North. Much nearer, you can peek down into the exercise area of Durham Prison.
The nearest beach, Seaham, is just 13 miles from the city on the east coast, so we rounded off the day with a bracing evening stroll by the sea.
Seaham is near the site of what was once the largest glass bottle works in Britain, The Londonderry Bottleworks.
Built in 1853 and in operation until 1921, the waste from the hand-crafted bottles, perfume bottles and household glass was dumped into the sea here. Over more than 100 years, it has been pummelled and polished into what is known as sea glass pebbles, which wash up on the beach. We set off on our own little treasure hunt for the famous coloured gems and came away with a pocketful. We’d crammed in so much on our “taste of rural life” trip to County Durham and beyond – coast, countryside, castles and a cathedral. Now do excuse me while I Google the property prices.