Gargoyles in Durham

On our first full day we set out to find views of the river that Mr T's Mum has in two old paintings. I had them on my camera viewer. A stall holder in the Saturday street market had been very helpful identifying the bridges: 'when were these taken?' ..er, painted over 100 years ago.. 'you'll find it's a bit different now'.

We went for a full circuit round the river bank which almost completely encircles the old city. The first one, the Framwellgate Bridge, was not too difficult - from the river bank by the Gates shopping centre car park. We crossed back over and walked right round to try and get the same viewpoint of the Elvet Bridge but a new bridge got in the way of the perfect shot. I'll put the other shots on Flickr later.

It was an interesting walk with many boathouses - we'd always thought of Oxford & Cambridge as rowing universities but there were dozens of boats out, from families in hired row boats to serious looking racing eights. Mr T's Dad was at school in Durham before the war and started at the University before he joined up - he was a member of the rowing team. Had WW2 not intervened he might well have gone on to the Olympics.

This monument was along the river bank. The gargoyles seemed to be new ones, not recycled, but there was no clue about what is was commemorating, if anything. If I find out I'll update this.

Update: It's called Kathedra by Colin Wilbourn (1988) and is situated beside the Prebends Bridge on the River Wear.

"Kathedra, also known as 'The Peace Seat' or 'Order and Chaos', is the second of two sculptures made by Wilbourn during his artist-in-residency at Durham Cathedral. (DUDE06 qv) The work makes reference to the Bishop's throne or cathedra which is normally located in the Cathedral of a Diocese." http://pmsa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/NE/DUDU07.htm