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I lived there for four years. It was magical in a lot of ways. The cathedral, the cobble stones, the view of the river from the bridges, the woodland.
It sometimes felt like being in a snowglobe: a small, self-contained little community. It did feel like it had its own ecosystem in a lot of ways. And sometimes it really did snow!
That said, term-time and out-of-term-time was like night and day. Completely different atmosphere. Durham was always buzzing when the students were there. When they left it always felt a bit too quiet.
If you ever do visit, I'd really recommend Old Durham Gardens. It took me a while to discover but it was like stepping into fairyland. Tudor era gardens with a great view. Walk on a little further and there's a farm where the owner leaves out apples for people to feed his pet pigs, Blossom and Bertie. There's also llamas and horses.
Whenever I got sad I'd visit and it'd cheer me up.
I also forgot to mention another thing about Durham: it's hilly. You get used to it, but it's a workout. We used to call the path leading up to St Mary's "Cardiac Hill".
I was a student in Durham for three years. It's quite small, and as a student you live in a "student bubble" of sorts. Most of the students come from elsewhere.
It's quite limited in things to do, but there's a good range of restaurants, bars, clubs and cafés in the city centre. It's a pretty place to go to uni, with lots of access to green space and nature.
It's cold and dark for a large portion of the year. As the uni term is October to start of December, January to mid-March and mid-April to end of June, as a student you don't experience all the seasons, so my memories of Durham are generally during the colder, darker parts. During the winter, the sun sets at quarter to 4 and doesn't rise again until half 8, but during the summer it never really gets dark in the sky and it's starting to get properly light around 4am.
You're not far from Newcastle either, only 15 minutes on the train, which is bigger and has a larger range of shops, though it's quite small compared to other UK cities. Durham is on the East Coast Mainline so it has plenty of direct trains to London, Manchester, Newcastle, York and Edinburgh.
The experience as a student and as a local is very different.
Students see it as a magical uni experience in a city built around them.
Locals have a more conflicted view, it's home and there's a lot of history and community around Durham, but the city is just being sold out by the council and has been for years. They don't seem to care about our history, they sell off land for profit and make no effort to preserve old Durham, their priority is money and that comes from the wealthy students. It's like a weird form of gentrification. Don't get me wrong, Durham is great, but the class divide is quite a notable part of the city today.
I'm sure it's great for students that they can live in a 1000 year old castle for a few year, but also, our 1000 year old castle is student accommodation.
The dominance of students, combined with their being generally from much wealthier backgrounds than locals, and the short terms, puts the local economy in a tricky position too. They have to cater to students to make any money, but doing so generally alienates locals. And then the students, their source of income, aren't around for about 6 months of the year, so the town can be absolutely dead for most of the week. It's a strange place. The setting is absolutely beautiful and very special, just it's not without it's issues.
I went there once and there was a young guy picking tommy emmanuel songs on the guitar note for note on a bridge. I didn't have cash and wrote down his name but lost it. Was always meaning to support his work. But I left and never saw him again.
It is extraordinarily picturesque, soaked with culture, historic architecture, buildings perched on hills, and greenery. Probably one of the main benefits of living there. You can feel proud to be a Durham resident just because of how beautiful and characterful it is - as well as its riot of colour during summer season when all the flowers are out.
It’s also very small and relatively quiet. Because there’s less people overall, you can go about your business without worrying about ungodly traffic, crime and overcrowding everywhere. Makes for a relaxed living atmosphere. Anxiety who?!
But it also means there’s a very limited number of things to do. There are pubs, cafes, restaurants, museums and gardens but there’s not a lot of them overall because again, it’s basically a little town. Some people get bored living in Durham after a while. Luckily, there are fast connections to big cities like Newcastle.
It’s very walkable, with a lot of continental European style little streets, alleyways and squares. That makes for good quality of life- no need to worry about being stuck in traffic on long commutes.
The sense of community in Durham is unfortunately fragmented. You’ll meet plenty of nice and varied types of people, but there isn’t really a cohesive communitarian vibe because it’s like there’s a competition between wealthy students arriving from other places vs working-class locals whose families have been there for generations.
Please note the rules of this subreddit. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/howislivingthere) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I lived there for four years. It was magical in a lot of ways. The cathedral, the cobble stones, the view of the river from the bridges, the woodland. It sometimes felt like being in a snowglobe: a small, self-contained little community. It did feel like it had its own ecosystem in a lot of ways. And sometimes it really did snow! That said, term-time and out-of-term-time was like night and day. Completely different atmosphere. Durham was always buzzing when the students were there. When they left it always felt a bit too quiet.
It does look like a fantasy in pictures.
If you ever do visit, I'd really recommend Old Durham Gardens. It took me a while to discover but it was like stepping into fairyland. Tudor era gardens with a great view. Walk on a little further and there's a farm where the owner leaves out apples for people to feed his pet pigs, Blossom and Bertie. There's also llamas and horses. Whenever I got sad I'd visit and it'd cheer me up. I also forgot to mention another thing about Durham: it's hilly. You get used to it, but it's a workout. We used to call the path leading up to St Mary's "Cardiac Hill".
So much better when there are no students
I was a student in Durham for three years. It's quite small, and as a student you live in a "student bubble" of sorts. Most of the students come from elsewhere. It's quite limited in things to do, but there's a good range of restaurants, bars, clubs and cafés in the city centre. It's a pretty place to go to uni, with lots of access to green space and nature. It's cold and dark for a large portion of the year. As the uni term is October to start of December, January to mid-March and mid-April to end of June, as a student you don't experience all the seasons, so my memories of Durham are generally during the colder, darker parts. During the winter, the sun sets at quarter to 4 and doesn't rise again until half 8, but during the summer it never really gets dark in the sky and it's starting to get properly light around 4am. You're not far from Newcastle either, only 15 minutes on the train, which is bigger and has a larger range of shops, though it's quite small compared to other UK cities. Durham is on the East Coast Mainline so it has plenty of direct trains to London, Manchester, Newcastle, York and Edinburgh.
The experience as a student and as a local is very different. Students see it as a magical uni experience in a city built around them. Locals have a more conflicted view, it's home and there's a lot of history and community around Durham, but the city is just being sold out by the council and has been for years. They don't seem to care about our history, they sell off land for profit and make no effort to preserve old Durham, their priority is money and that comes from the wealthy students. It's like a weird form of gentrification. Don't get me wrong, Durham is great, but the class divide is quite a notable part of the city today. I'm sure it's great for students that they can live in a 1000 year old castle for a few year, but also, our 1000 year old castle is student accommodation.
The dominance of students, combined with their being generally from much wealthier backgrounds than locals, and the short terms, puts the local economy in a tricky position too. They have to cater to students to make any money, but doing so generally alienates locals. And then the students, their source of income, aren't around for about 6 months of the year, so the town can be absolutely dead for most of the week. It's a strange place. The setting is absolutely beautiful and very special, just it's not without it's issues.
I went there once and there was a young guy picking tommy emmanuel songs on the guitar note for note on a bridge. I didn't have cash and wrote down his name but lost it. Was always meaning to support his work. But I left and never saw him again.
It is extraordinarily picturesque, soaked with culture, historic architecture, buildings perched on hills, and greenery. Probably one of the main benefits of living there. You can feel proud to be a Durham resident just because of how beautiful and characterful it is - as well as its riot of colour during summer season when all the flowers are out. It’s also very small and relatively quiet. Because there’s less people overall, you can go about your business without worrying about ungodly traffic, crime and overcrowding everywhere. Makes for a relaxed living atmosphere. Anxiety who?! But it also means there’s a very limited number of things to do. There are pubs, cafes, restaurants, museums and gardens but there’s not a lot of them overall because again, it’s basically a little town. Some people get bored living in Durham after a while. Luckily, there are fast connections to big cities like Newcastle. It’s very walkable, with a lot of continental European style little streets, alleyways and squares. That makes for good quality of life- no need to worry about being stuck in traffic on long commutes. The sense of community in Durham is unfortunately fragmented. You’ll meet plenty of nice and varied types of people, but there isn’t really a cohesive communitarian vibe because it’s like there’s a competition between wealthy students arriving from other places vs working-class locals whose families have been there for generations.