A Durham Trail

(Approximately 75-90 minutes)

Read the directions below and as you follow the trail look carefully around you to find
the answers to the questions. Sometimes the answer is in front of you, sometimes on
your left or right; sometimes beneath your feet and sometimes even above your head.
Some questions are easy-peasy, some are difficult and some are almost impossible.
If you don’t know or can’t find the answer; ask somebody!
Have fun!

Leave St. Chad’s College and turn right. Cross the road and take Dun Cow
Lane up to the Palace Green.
(1) What is the name for the small stones in the road in Dun Cow Lane?

Turn right into Palace Green. The first building is a University Department.
(2) (a) Which Department is it? (b) What is the name of the House?

Continue anti-clockwise around Palace Green. The very old building on your
right is now a café-restaurant.
(3) (a) What was it before 1666? (b) What was it after 1666?
 Bonus question 1: What happened in London in 1666?

Stop and look around you. Take a photo!

After the University Police Station, there are two red boxes. Find “VR”.
(4) What does “VR” mean?

Continue going anti-clockwise until you reach the Castle. The Castle is now a
College of the University.
(5) How much does it cost to visit the castle and what are the opening
times?
 Bonus Question 2: What was the building to the left of the Castle
gate between 1438 and 1457?

Continue walking anti-clockwise. After you have passed the University Music
Library turn right down a narrow alley. At the bottom, turn left and walk along
the footpath below the Cathedral. On your right is the River.
(6) What is the name of the river?

Above you there are some gigantic buttresses [stone columns] which support
the Cathedral.
(7) How many buttresses are there?

After the buttresses, about halfway down the footpath, turn left (through open
black metal gates) and go up the path. On your right in the corner is the
entrance to the “Slype”. Walk up the “Slype”. Mind your head!
(8) What is a “Slype”?

You are now in “The College”.

On your left, on a wall behind a tree, you can tell the time.
(9) How?
On your right, on the grass, is a small octagonal building.
(10) What was it for? (11) Who are the people whose faces are sculpted
on it?

Continue a walking until you reach a School.

(12) (a) Who is the school for?
(b) What do the schoolchildren do every weekday evening and
every Sunday morning?
 Bonus Question 3: Name two world-famous ex-students of this
school. If you don’t know the answer; ask somebody!

Continue anti-clockwise past some very old houses. When you get to House
Number 5, stop and look around you.
(13) What is different about House Number 5?
Go up the steps to the door of House Number 5 – with your back to the door;
look left. This Street is very old. How can we know this?

Leave the College Green via the old archway. Look at the walls as you go
out.
(14) At what time do they lock this gate?

Turn right – the red letter-box in the wall has the cipher “EiiR” on it.
(15) What does “EiiR” mean?
 Bonus question 4: What is the exact relationship between “VR” and
“EiiR”?

Continue down the road. Go through the old city walls and go out onto
Prebend’s Bridge. On the other side of the bridge is the best view of the
Cathedral. Take a photo!
(16) “Grey Towers of Dvrham…half church of God half castle ‘gainst the
Scot…”. Who wrote these lines?
Bonus question 5: What nationality was the writer?

Go back over the bridge. Turn right and go down the “River Footpath”. You
will see a small temple. Continue along the river. Just before the concrete
bridge you will see something circular (red and white).
(17) It sounds like a “small man”: What is it?

Go up the steps, under the concrete bridge, on your left.

(18) They are sometimes called “The Century Steps”? Why?

Continue up Bow Street into North Bailey. Turn left when you can see the
Cathedral.

If you are not completely lost, you are now back at St. Chad’s College.
Congratulations!
Time for juice, coffee, tea and biscuits!

*** Special Bonus Question : Who was Saint Chad?

© Glenn Sweet 2011