Durham Memories: Tracing city's medieval centre back to its routes

The Market Place, Silver Street, Saddler Street, Old and New Elvet, Gilesgate, Claypath, Crossgate, the Baileys and the former streets of Millburngate and Framwellgate all have medieval origins.

The most obvious exception to this rule is the new High Street formed by the recently-built Prince Bishops Shopping Centre.

This street has altered the medieval street pattern of Durham's city centre, but it was not the first street to transform the city's medieval heart.

Until the building of the shopping centre, Durham's North Road was the nearest thing the city had to a high street, but it was also a relatively recent addition to the city's landscape.

It might seem that North Road has been there since time immemorial, but it was only built in 1831. Until that time, the streets of Framwellgate and Millburngate were the main entry points to the city from the north and they formed part of the route of the Great North Road into the city.

They were steep, dilapidated streets and were unpopular with travellers.

When plans were made for the Great North Road to bypass the city altogether, the people of influence in Durham decided that a new street needed to be built within the city. The result was the street of North Road, built a little to the west of Framwellgate.

The lower part of North Road, within the city centre was originally called King Street and some older residents of the city may still remember it by this name.

Commencing at the western end of Framwellgate Bridge, the street was named after King William IV, who became king at about the time of its construction.

Further to the north, the street was simply called North Road, up to its junction with Framwellgate Peth near the Garden House Pub - formerly called the Woodman.

King Street became a focus for Victorian development and a number of terraces were built around it, particularly after 1857 when the viaduct was built above the street.

The street became the main entrance into the city from the new railway station. For travellers it was often one of the first views of Durham.

Before 1831, the area now occupied by North Road was an open marshy land with overflowing springs and a stream called the Mill Burn.

The Mill Burn gave its name to Millburngate and had once worked as a mill race for a medieval flower mill called the Clock Mill. This stood close to the Wear where Millburngate Shopping Centre stands today. The stream was diverted beneath North Road by means of a culvert, but in the decades that followed, building developments in the street were often plagued by flooding.

Until the 1920s another corn mill stood in the North Road area, where the bus station stands today.

It was called Robson's Steam Corn Mill or the City Mill and it had a prominent chimney.

Durham Bus Station, one of the busiest in the north, was built in 1928 and was best known for its ornate iron and glass arcade.

Built by the architect Albert Fennell, of Chester-le-Street, the arcade was removed in 1976 and taken to Beamish Museum for preservation.

On the same side of the street as the bus station, the most prominent building in North Road is undoubtedly the former cinema, with its tall green copper domed tower.

For most of the 20th Century it served as a cinema but it was not built for that purpose. It was originally the Durham Miners' Hall, the headquarters for the Durham Miners Association.

It was built in 1874 on the site of a block of earlier houses called Monk's Buildings and the architect was T Oliver of Newcastle.

The hall opened on June 3, 1876, and one of the first meetings discussed the coal owners' proposed reduction of Durham miners' wages by ten per cent.

The building incorporated statues of the mining leaders Alexander Macdonald, WH Patterson and William Crawford. It was Crawford who established the Miners' Gala in the city in 1871.

A statue of John Forman was added to the building in 1906.

The membership of the union increased rapidly during the late 19th Century and by the beginning of the 20th Century, the building was no longer suitable for the task.

In October 1915, a much larger miner's hall was opened at Redhills and the statues were moved to the new site.

The old Miners' Hall became a cinema about 1934, but it was not the only cinema in the city. In fact the city's first cinema, called the Globe, was built in 1910 on the opposite side of North Road, but we will return to the subject of cinemas in a future Durham Memories.

Other prominent buildings in North Road include the Bethel Chapel of 1861 that was paid for by the local coal owner, Joseph Love.

He had considerable mining interests at Shincliffe and other places and was a staunch Methodist, with a reputation for uncompromising attitudes in his dealings with miners.

His chapel was perhaps the grandest building in North Road until it was overshadowed by the construction of the miners' hall in 1874.

Perhaps this irony was not lost on the miners' union.