Durham Cathedral

The successor to Lindisfarne Priory: the monks abandoned the island in 875 under Viking raids, settled at Chester-le-Street from 882, and moved here in 995. Most of the present building went up between 1093 and 1133, replacing the Anglo-Saxon White Church, and it is a major work of Romanesque architecture. The nave ceiling is the earliest surviving pointed rib vault anywhere. It holds the shrines of Cuthbert and Bede. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms it housed 3,000 Scottish prisoners of war, of whom 1,700 died inside the building.