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County Durham
This is the Umbrella Project Page for County Durham, England.
Go to People Connected to County-Durham
- The Bishop of Durham always holds a new Monarch's right hand at a coronation
- Washington Old Hall - George Washington's ancestral home.
County Durham is a ceremonial county of historic origin in North east England. Durham is the only English county name to be prefixed with "County" in common usage - a practice more common in Ireland.
The name comes from the Saxon word Dunholme, dun meaning a hill and holme referring to an island in a river (the rocky outcrop where Durham Cathedral now stands). The Normans changed it to Duresme, which was corrupted to Durham. Bishops ruled the area until 1836, so the suffix "shire" was never added. The name was first recorded in 1000 as Dunholme.
The county is hilly and sea-facing, compact and rugged with the Castled Durham at its centre.It lies between two great rivers, the Tyne and the Tees, and extends inland to Yorkshire and east to the Sea. There are industrial towns along the eastern coast facing the North Sea. There are many high cliffs and islands along the coast. The highest point is Beacon Hill. The county smooths inland along the valley of the Tees, with extensive stone wall ed fields and moors above.
The landscape is based on limestone in the west, then a clay plain with sandstone outcrops.
The largest town is Darlington. Other towns include:
The county has a mixture of mining and farming heritage, as well as a heavy railway industry, particularity in the southeast of the county in Darlington, Shildon and Stockton. Its economy was historically based on coal and iron mining.
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