Twelve members of Team Durham Cathedral are hard at work training for the third annual Durham City Run on 18 July. The team of staff from the Cathedral and Durham’s Barclays Branch and local supporters are running in support of Foundation 2020. All the funds raised will go towards the maintenance and upkeep of the Cathedral; it is especially appropriate then that the race should start and end outside Durham’s most iconic landmark! Continue reading Team Durham Cathedral are getting ready to race!→
This summer, Durham Cathedral is proud to present a new temporary exhibition celebrating the mining history and communities of County Durham, Miners: Pitmen, Pride and Prayer. The exhibition, in the collections gallery of Open Treasure, will explore how centuries of coal mining have shaped the North East and how mining heritage is still felt to this day in local communities.
As our Open Treasure exhibition space closes for a week, allowing the Tudors exhibition to move out and Miners: Pitmen, Pride and Prayer to move in, we spoke to Exhibitions Officer Marie-Therese Mayne about the process she and her team goes through each time there’s change on the horizon. Continue reading Behind the scenes during an exhibition changeover→
On Wednesdays and Saturdays, our Open Treasure gallery attendants deliver punchy 10 Minute Talks on the fascinating history of the Cathedral’s collections and buildings. Here’s a sample of a talk exploring the history of the Cathedral Library!
The birth of the collection
The library at Durham Cathedral is of significant importance as a direct continuation of the one started at Lindisfarne by St. Aidan. The books that the monks could carry with them were brought to Chester-Le-Street and it was here that the first new additions to the collection were made. The collection was bolstered in 934 AD by King Athelstan, who gave five new volumes to the community, including a copy of Bede’s ‘Life of Cuthbert’ which now resides in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Each month we feature an object from our internationally renowned collections as ‘Treasure of the Month’, and explain a little of their fascinating history. Durham Cathedral’s Treasure of the Month for May is undoubtedly one of the finest examples of 11th century Norman book production in existence – the Saint-Calais, or Carilef, Bible. Leaf through its pages at the website of Durham Priory Library Recreated, an ambitious digitisation project!
This guest blog is part of a series called Shattering Perceptions. Written by Hannah Taylor and Maggie Birnbaum, MA students at Durham University, these blogs delve into the trailblazing female academics celebrated in their upcoming exhibition, Shattering Perceptions: The Women of Archaeology. Their exhibition will be open at Palace Green Library from 14 June.
It’s the busiest time of year for the Cathedral’s team of gardeners at the moment, with lots of work needed in the Cathedral’s allotment garden to plant out a greenhouse full of promising young shoots. Flowers from the garden will be used over the summer for displays inside the Cathedral. We caught up with our gardening team during a gloriously sunny week of planting.
