Durham Riverside

Durham is a fabulous place to have a wander around. Obviously the main draw is Durham Cathedral, but there are plenty of lovely hidden gems to find around the city and quite a few down by the riverside.

This walk will take us down both sides of the river, wandering on the north side first before returning via the south side. First task is to go over the footbridge to the other side of the river.

From here you can see the weirs and also the cathedral peeping over the trees.

Now we just follow the river as best we can. Sometimes there are footpaths right next to the river, but other times we have to divert inland a little and then revert back. Our first little treat is a silver sculpture of a heron.

Nipping inland a little we head back to the riverside and find our first place of the day which is Kathedra, A stone chair of carved gargoyles.

Following the river we come to the southern most tip and is here where we find the Count's House, which is a Grecian style summerhouse named after a Polish entertainer.

Keeping to the riverside track we wander around until we come to the distinct looking Kingsgate Footbridge. It's a modernist style bridge and did you know it was constructed without using scaffolding. It's also pretty difficult to get a full shot of it from down here.

If you want a view from the top, then just take a little diversion up the stairs and then return to the riverside path when you are ready.

After its loop, we cross over the river at a little footbridge and then keep heading east until we find the Durham Cow, although it looks more like an ox to me.

This is the halfway mark so we track back west and now hug the river from the south side. As my glamorous assistant isn't a fan of walks, to keep her happy I always have to entice her with a beverage. So we stop at a little bar overlooking the Elvet Bridge.

Then we head inland a bit before picking up the riverside track near the Kingsgate Bridge. Just after the loop we come to Prebends Bridge (probably Postbends Bridge coming to it from this direction).

I embarrassingly didn't take any photos of the bridge on the walk, so here are a couple from our other Fabulous North contributors.

We took a little diversion to see the pretty Prebends Cottage too.

We also found a couple of old water fountains nearby.

Heading onto the Prebends Bridge we saw a bit of commotion on the water with loads of rowers milling around. We had a chat with a steward who informed us that this was a head race which is a time trial. So each boat goes off at set intervals and they are racing against their best time. It would have been absolute carnage if they were actually racing each other.

A short walk away we then found Reveal which is a pyramidical structure built with repurposed stone from a Durham Cathedral turret.

Back on the riverside track and we get a fab view of the cathedral and more of the rowers.

Lots of weirs on the River Wear.

Then we just head under the Framwellgate Bridge before making our way back to the car.

Just 6km in total all on decent track if you fancy it, with the added benefit of never being too far away from a pub for a liquid lunch.