The History Department took their Year 12 students on a walking tour of the City of Durham, due to the location of Durham Sixth Form Centre we are surrounded by quite a bit of important history, significant to both local and nationwide stories. 

History students study three modules; The Wars of the Roses 1450-1499, The Tudors 1501-1603 and The United States of America 1865-1975. The city of Durham itself has links to all three of these. To capitalise on this we took teaching outdoors with a walking tour of historical Durham for the week commencing 1st July.  

Students started at Durham marketplace and were able to walk around the Town Hall to learn about the evolution of local governance of Durham itself. We even saw the armoury of the bodyguards of the Durham Mayor and found out about punishments for local crimes and tax avoidance. Mr. Grieve was eventually found innocent of any such crimes. 

After this we traced the path of the old city walls of Durham and found out about Durham’s autonomy in the Medieval and Early Modern period of history. We then moved along the peninsula of Durham and walked through the Cathedral on to Palace Green. We looked at why the nobles of the Wars of the Roses wanted to secure the Prince-Bishopric of Durham, the impact of the Reformation on Durham Cathedral and made note of some local nobility who carried the name Wessington or Washington by some spellings who became quite a big deal in the late 1700s!  

This also coincided with the graduation ceremonies for Durham University. Palace Green was quite crowded with all the celebrations going on but it made a lot of students think about university options and life beyond sixth form.

Overall, a good day out was had by all and we all learned something new about the city we all commute to everyday. It certainly made the students appreciate the significance of Durham in history.

We would like to extend special thanks to the team at Durham Town Hall who opened up the site especially for us.