After Oxford and Cambridge, the University of Durham is the oldest university in England, receiving its charter in 1832, one year ahead of London. There had been two previous attempts to set up a university in Durham: first by King Henry VIII, but the dons of Oxford and Cambridge rebelled; second during the Commonwealth, by Oliver Cromwell. This second attempt did work after a fashion for several years, and used buildings behind the cathedral around what is called The College (said, unflatteringly, to have inspired C.S. Lewis in his writing of That Hideous Strength). However, the university was seen as being too closely identified with the prevailing political regime which ended with the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy. The third, and finally successful attempt was made in the early 19th century, with the confluence of two circumstances. On the one hand, local land-owning families felt increasingly reluctant to send their sons (daughters were given few educational opportunities) away to Oxford or Cambridge for a classical education, or to London College for a technical education. Instead, they wanted their sons to receive locally a technical education appropriate to their needs of managing the industries which they owned, particularly coal mines. On the other hand, the Church of England was being divested by the government of some of its land and property, and rather than it all being given away to the state, Bishop Van Mildert negotiated that some land and buildings in Durham be given to found a university. Durham castle, built by the Normans in the 11th century, is now home to University College, and students live in the castle keep. In contrast, most of the university's colleges are more modern. When I was a student, I lived in Grey College, named after Earl Grey (also of tea-fame) the British Prime Minister at the time of the university's charter. Grey College was built in the 1950s, when the science faculty was expanding. Van Mildert College, built in the 1960s was the first university college in Durham to take both men and women. Even when I was a student in the 1970s, most of the colleges were single-sex. Now almost all the colleges are mixed sex.
Durham University has its own botanical gardens. There are plants and trees from all over the world, including some in a hot house reproducing desert-like and tropical rain forest conditions. Whilst far from the scale of Kew Gardens in London, UK, and still less than the Jardins Botaniques in Montreal, the Durham University Botanical Gardens are worth a visit for anyone staying in Durham for a few days. Several of the other colleges have small but nationally significant collections of trees.
The university has two museums. The best known is the Gulbenkian Oriental Museum, based on the McDonald Collection. Wheelchair access is appalling, but for the able-bodied this is an excellent small museum of oriental art artefacts. Even smaller is the Old Fulling Mill archaeological museum. Whilst its opening hours are restricted, severely in winter, it offers an excellent archaeological background to Durham and the North East of England. Durham castle, some parts of which are Norman in age, is also of interest. It has a keep standing on a substantial motte, a Great Hall, and a highly attractive courtyard. The castle currently accommodates University College, and so is open to visitors during holiday periods. For other tourist information, follow Durham City link.
Unlike Oxford and Cambridge, little teaching takes place in the colleges, with the exception of ordination training. Most teaching (lectures, seminars, laboratory work, etc.) takes place within academic departments. Whilst some academic departments are nationally average, some are very highly respected. For instance, the Law Department has a high national reputation for the quality of its teaching, as well as being recognised as a foremost research centre for the study of European law. The Theology Department is internationally renowned, not least for the work of feminist theologian Dr Anne Loades. It is not just in humanities that Durham has excelled. I remember as a geology student being fortunate enough to be offered an early glimpse under the microscope of moon rock in thin section, because Professor Brown was one of the researchers in Britain to receive material from NASA. Although it might seem somewhat esoteric to the non-specialist, Durham University has been the academic home of a number of leading geologists, including Arthur Holmes, and Sir Kingsley Dunham who first promoted the notion of global plate tectonics (more commonly known as continental drift). Durham University is also at the forefront of some kinds of astrophysics. I believe that Carlos Frenk, a lecturer in astrophysics, recently had the honour of being the most cited scientist (i.e. that his scientific papers were cited more often than those of any other scientist).
I used to teach in the Department of Adult and Continuing Education. The department had its roots in offering education to working class people with little but elementary experience of education. Although the view might be somewhat outdated, it was sometimes considered that universities offered elitist educational opportunities for undergraduates. The people I taught tended to be nurses, health visitors, social workers, teachers, clergy and the like. However, due to anticipated changes in government funding, the University closed the department, and moved some of the teaching into the University's teacher training institution. From my perspective this was an unmitigated disaster
The department in which I taught offered training in counselling from the most basic introductory level through to what can be considered a professional qualification in counselling. Early in 1997, the British Association for Counselling, the largest counselling body outside the U.S., accredited the three year part-time (450 hours) counselling training course.
I teach people to counsel. This means that I teach people to listen carefully and accurately, and to respond verbally and non-verbally in ways that helps the person who is being counselled. Counselling in Britain is similar to psychotherapy, but tends to be carried out by people whose primary role is not psychotherapy. A selection of counselling papers is included elsewhere in this web site.