County Durham owes its unusual name to centuries of rule by prince-bishops
No other English county is routinely called County Something, a habit more at home in Ireland. Durham earned it because for centuries its bishops ran it as a county palatine, largely outside the normal English system. The city itself began in 995, when monks fleeing Viking raids went looking for a safe home for St Cuthbert's relics.
The name has deep roots, recorded as Durhamshire around 1100 and in Latin as County Durham by 1344. Officially, the ceremonial county is simply Durham, and modern legislation wobbles between phrases such as the county of County Durham and the county of Durham, while the council calls itself Durham County Council. The old postal county used the longer form to distinguish it from the town of Durham.
The land sat at the edge of Roman Britain, and Binchester Roman Fort survives from that era. Around 547 an Angle named Ida founded the kingdom of Bernicia from the rock at Bamburgh, and in 604 his grandson Æthelfrith forced it together with Deira to create Northumbria. When Vikings seized the southern part in 867, the frontier they established still marks the historic border between Durham and Yorkshire. After the Norman Conquest, Durham Cathedral was rebuilt, and together with Durham Castle it is now a World Heritage Site. In the late Middle Ages the semi-independent bishops also held a buffer zone between England and Scotland.
Coal transformed the county in the 19th century, when collieries multiplied across the Durham coalfield. In 1825 the line linking Stockton and Darlington opened as the first public railway anywhere to haul traffic with steam locomotives. Most pits closed in the last quarter of the 20th century, but the annual Durham Miners' Gala keeps the mining heritage alive.
Today the county covers 2,676 square kilometres with around 894,000 people, most living in the busier centre and east, in places such as Darlington, the largest town, Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees. The west rises into the North Pennines, where the Tees and Wear begin before winding east through Teesdale and Weardale. The coast is lined with tall limestone and dolomite cliffs protected for their scientific interest.
Source: County Durham
