Durham

“If you have never been to Durham, go there at once,” urged Bill Bryson, who found it a perfect little city. Many travellers first meet it as a view from the train window: cathedral and castle stacked on a wooded loop of the River Wear, there and gone before anyone looks up.

Durham’s own arrival took rather longer. Fleeing Viking raids on Lindisfarne, monks carried St Cuthbert’s coffin around the North for generations, and legend says they only settled here after following a milkmaid in search of her lost dun cow. The shrine they built made the town a power, and its Prince Bishops went on to rule like kings, with their own courts, armies and coins.

VoiceMap’s self-guided audio tours give that skyline its stories and then lead you beneath it. Walk with a County Durham native from the Market Place across Framwellgate Bridge to Palace Green, or follow a darker trail of poisoners and botched hangings from the old County Court. And if Prebends Bridge stops you in your tracks, just hit pause.