1937 Durham City and University Life

Thursday June 6th began and ended as glorious a warm and sunny day as Wednesday. But by Sunday the weather had reverted to its recent summer norm, wet and cold. Thus the four days encapsulated my present life as it has become.

On Thursday morning I took the Park and Ride from just off the AIM on the 690 road from Sunderland into the City of Durham. A field has been converted into two huge car parks just off the junction roundabout and where there has been built an attractive waiting area and automatic ticket. There is a single Decker bus every ten minutes taking the short circular route into the city stopping close by the paying multi-storey car park which has been used since it was built for visit to the city, although during those early years in the 1990‘s when Durham played cricket at Durham Riverside I usually managed to park within the grounds or along at the Rugby ground within view of the infamous Durham jail, now considerably extended to cope with the overall rise of the prison population.

There is now a congestion charge to enter the area of the Market Square and continue up to the Cathedral where there is also the former castle and the university Library. The park and ride ticket, usually £1.70 but free for concessions can also be used on a second single Decker bus to take one up the narrow winding road to the Cathedral, with shops, inns and restaurants and rooms used for university and student activities. Durham University is Colligate but with the 14 colleges spread in the city and to the southern parklands, and at Stockton where there are two colleges.

It will be fifty years since first going to the adult Education college situated at Oxford and with special links to the university and undergraduate life. Given my life immediately prior to arrival I was ill equipped to make best use of the experience in terms of the academic and social life available as then I did not understand the nature of my learning difficulties and knowledge retention. In fairness I did throw myself wholeheartedly into the experience which at times was overwhelming, at others lonely, challenging throughout as I took to notion of academic truth with great enthusiasm and then to the potential power of social case work for making fundamental changes to the lives of individuals. It remains a regret that I did not have the normal route of sixth form and undergraduate experience before jumping into the deep end of a course where all but five others of course students were first and second class honours graduates.

I am guessing that the Durham undergraduate experience is close to that at Oxford and Cambridge and other colligate universities where the student is able to participate in several levels of academic and social experience. The individual college is a total life system during term time, with the appointment of a college tutor to see them through their individual courses as well as the tutorial system, seminars and lecture system provided by the University through its faculties and departments. The college provides accommodation and food and college facilities such as a gym and bar common room, sporting teams, musical and dramatic and other social and interest activities depending on the culture and bias of the college and its size. Each college has its own budget and staff

However the undergraduate has also to be registered with a department of which there over a score within three faculties, at Oxford they are called Schools. These provide the structure, teaching and study framework as well as assessment and examination process in the chosen subject. The University is a large organisation with 15000 students of which a fifth come from overseas, and 3500 are undertaking post graduate work. There are over 3000 staff with some 40 separate administrative and organisational staffed functions, an annual budget of £160 million to cover its functions which as had been mentioned emphasised are separate from those of the individual colleges.

In addition to social and sporting activities provided by individual colleges there are a large number of university wide sporting and social activities which each having officers and a committee usually made up of representatives of the individual colleges. There is also a student union which offers information and support services as well as social. In addition some students like to participate in the life of the local community whether it is to attend a church or faith group, hang out a local bar or nightclub, undertake voluntary work, or join a political or other social group. It is easy for some who become sidetracked away from their studies although much depends on why they have come to university and if they know in advance what their occupational activity is going to be afterwards. Looking through the on line features of the university and its colleges I noted that one is now offering two scholarships for ex service men and women.

I must do some work comparing student life today and fifty years ago and whether anything has changed other than costs and student loans. My two years at Ruskin were fully paid by Surrey County Council as was the 12 month Child Care Course at Birmingham University by the Home Office, although the grant meant I was on survival rations during practical work placements outside of term time with the consequence that I was able to start work without inherited debts. To day around £8000 is required to cover tuition and live in cost during term time although there is overprovision for the provision of accommodation without food at other times.

The focus of my visit was the great Cathedral about which I wrote at length after making the first visit after several years last twelve months ago. The Cathedral is one of the most welcoming along with Beverley and Southwell Minsters and I am always affected by the sense of history, spirituality and repose. I had forgotten where the audio visual commentary is located and was just as impressed and moved. Later in the space between the Gala Theatre and cinema there is the sculpture of the monks carrying the remains of St Cuthbert after they fled Lindisfarne from the rampaging Nords and eventually settled for 100 years at Chester Le Street after going as far as the Cumbrian coast to the west. I enjoyed a four seasons pizza at an Italian restaurant just over the Elvet Bridge before making my way to Marks and Spencer’s in the hope there were some summer trousers in my size. There were not.

I then walked over the Framwelgate Bridge where the two course lunch at the Cafe Rouge was prices at close on £11, two to three pounds more than London Victoria or the Metro centre at Gateshead. Further along towards the bus station there is a Wetherspoons and a Yates Lodge both offering meal deal at a fraction. I debated taking the bus to Sunderland and then the fast service back to Shields, but it was such a fine day and feeling relaxed I mistakenly settled for the bus to South Shields, which took all of 90 minutes, thirty to reach Chester Le Street, 30 to reach Washington bus station and another 30 to Shields.

I have only taken this bus route once before and could not remember the detour just outside of Durham, close to the village of Pity Me where a new shopping development has been created with the usual mix of stores restaurants, including giant Sainsbury’s supermarket, a Frankie and Benny’s and McDonalds. In Washington the bus takes a detour to the huge government office complex and to the Nissan car plant.

1935 b William Armstrong's creation

As forecast Wednesday, which will now be known as the Cumbria shooting’s day, started brightly and I set off for Cragside the wonderful estate in north west Northumberland not far from the Cumbrian border. The route took me through the Tyne Tunnel where considerable progress is being made with the creation of the large new area for making payments on the north south route which is use the new tunnel whose entrance can now be seen, and where recently the tunnelling operations from either end met after breaking through to each other.

The first part of the journey is along the two lane each way A19 which then joins the A1 which forms the AIM south of the river after passing through Newcastle. Just after passing the junction with leading to Alnwick, the road is taken north westwards towards Rothbury where there are two route to the estate. One is direct but the other is more attractive with views towards the Simonside hills, part of the Cheviots alongside the river Coquet which continues for 40 miles until reaching the coast at Ambleside. Along here is also Brinkburn Priory, a National Trust Property in a beautiful setting overlooking the river.
This route take one round part of the estate with its thirty miles of car drives and separate thirty miles of pathways. The entrance leads quickly to one of two car parks within a short walking distance of the main house and the separate areas of former stables and estate workers converted into restaurant, shop and visitor‘s centre.

There was a brief visit to Restaurant for a coffee in the former stables overlooking the Tumbleton lake before commencing pre lunch walk, Behind the restaurant and car park the rock is steep and high above which the trees then tower. It is a spectacular position. The selected pathway takes on below the main house which itself stands over one of the largest rock gardens anywhere and which falls sharply down to the burn, then taking the autumn colour walk up to the Clock Tower and the formal gardens, involving a steep climb. Only half a mile from the House the walk takes a good twenty minutes of steady climbing meriting close attention to where you place your feet. The spring bulb season over the gardens are just being to put on their summer finery and another month will see them at their best.

There are splendid views across grassland towards the Simonside hills at this point as well as a giant owl carved out of a large broken tree. From here close to a car park and the wildlife Hide, I went down to the valley garden, the route to the original Pump House where the first hydroelectric plant anywhere in the world was created to bring electricity to the main house, the first home to have electric light in the world.

This is the appropriate point to record how Cragside came to be created. William Armstrong, later created Baron Armstrong, was born in Newcastle. His father was a corm merchant who became a Mayor of Newcastle. Thus with a middle class background he was educated at private schools and followed the career chosen by his father for him that of the law, and he became a local solicitor after qualification in London, and practiced for more than a decade before deciding on a dramatic change of career. In fact it was not a sudden change because William had become greatly interested in engineering and it was while visiting the engineering works of William Rams haw that he met his subsequent wife Margaret Ramshaw, six years his senior. They lived in Jesmond Dene, an attractive gorge part of Newcastle to the western boundary.

As a child he had suffered from chest coughs and this led to his parents taking him the Northumberland Countryside and in particular to Rothbury where he fell in love with the rocky crags and hills surrounding the village. This might have remained his association with the area had not he worked out the first of many ideas which was to change aspects of the nation’s future and create a fortune for his himself and his childless wife.

It was on an angling trip to the River Dee at Dentdale in the Pennines that he was struck was struck by a waterwheel used to supply power to a marble quarry and he realised that that the opportunity to hardness water in this way was being missed so on return he designed a rotary engine and then a piston engine for this purpose and his work was recognised becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society just before the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1850. Before then he had designed hydraulic cranes for use on Newcastle Quayside to unload ships. He established a company and a factory to build more cranes starting with 300 men in 1850 and increasing to 3800 by 1863 producing over 100 cranes a year. He then added bridge building with that at Inverness one of the original orders.

His next interest as to create a more effective field gun for the army because of their experience in the Crimea War. This then led to creating naval guns and to designing the Swing bridge which is still in operation in Newcastle to provide access further up the river. By the 1880 he had moved into warship construction at his works at Elswick where the community increased from three and half thousand to twenty seven thousand because of the work provided.

Thus with his wealth and position he decided to purchase a estate of seven square kilometres near Rothbury, starting with a small house on the site of the present one overlooking a tributary to the Coquet. It will be evident that Armstrong did not do things on a small scale and began clearing and reshaping of his estate, planting seven million trees, creating five artificial lakes and the carriage way and pathways around the estate. Deciding to make the estate his main home he arranged for the house to be enlarged from 1969 taking 15 years to complete and became a place in which he could entertain the highest from many lands including the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Prime Minister of China, the Shah of Persia and the King of Siam. He died on 1900 aged 90 years leaving in his will a sum of over £10 million in today’s money for the creation of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, a sum of over £1million in today’s money for the creation of the Hancock Natural History Museum and donating the Jesmond Dene wooded gorge to the people of Newcastle as well as the Armstrong Bridge and Park.

And now protected and nurtured by the National Trust there is Cragside for everyone to enjoy, at a price with £48 being the sum for entry to all National Trust properties for a year or £9 for single adult entry to grounds.

Returning to my visit I pressed the button in the Pump House to commenced a one revolution cycle of the original motor bringing electricity to the house. From there a picnic lunch was collected from the car before finding a pot overlooking Tumbleton Lake where the view and meal was enjoyed in hot sunshine. After that and a relax there was a drive around the outer edge the estate to admire the glorious azaleas in their golden yellow and rhododendrons in the varied colours for mauve through to deep crimson in their hundred if not thousands of plantings from small infant shrubs to ancient huge tree like growths clinging to crag side or surrounding the roadways and paths.

This road way goes through the house and on to the north east edge of the estate where I took a detour to the Cragend car park which I cannot remember previously venturing and which is a extraordinary place which looks as if the rocks have been sliced in blocks for use in the buildings but where now tall trees have progressed from what appears to be bare rocks with visible roots spreading to reach anchoring earth. The road turns south at Blackburn Waterfall where there is also parking, then passing the Thatched Boathouse which once led to Blackburn Lake, no longer to the main area for families overlooking the adjacent lakes of Nellies Moss North and South. Here there is a large adventure area and various trails for children and adults, a refreshment kiosk doing a continuous trade in ice creams and cold, and toilets. I was able to find a picnic table overlooking the lake to enjoy a chocolate ice before continuing the car journey past the Labyrinth, the Timber fume and several more care parking areas, passing an exit, and then back along one side of Tumbleton where at the restaurant two scones, a pot of jam and a carton of cream plus tea cost £4.50

It was time for the journey home with a traffic build up approaching the Tyne Tunnel, with four lanes becoming two and then one through thee tunnel and for once the other motorists behaving sensibly. I looked forward to have evening meal of tomato soup, salad and strawberries and cream and then discovered the new of the killings and that the international media was descending on the Cumbrian coastal town of Whitehaven. I switched over to Britain’s Got talent and an evening 20 20 cricket match as the horror and the pain was too great to bear, and if so for me what for loved ones, other relatives, friends and acquaintances.