Morris in the Market Place

Categories: durham

Date: 26 July 2009 12:30:48

Yesterday I wandered into town and was frustrated that the busy market place was being congested by Morris Men and those who stopped to watch them. Today, on the way home from church, there were no market stalls or Saturday shoppers to be negotiated and so Third Party and I stopped to "enjoy" a spot of Morris. It is one of the things I have to admit loving about England you can innocently wander through town, going about your business, and find yourself encountering some strange type of entertainment. What I am starting to love about Durham is the growing sense they don't understand they are a city and so should live by the rules of concrete. They seem to be under the illusion they are actually a festival field, or at the very least a village where you can get a drink in the local pub and watch entertainment in a beer garden or on the village green. Yet they are not....there is no continental style seating outside the pubs in the market place just a huge horse statue and the Gala is a traditional theatre. The picturesque grime adds to all this somehow. They are talking about redeveloping the marketplace and moving the statue but in my view that will spoil the character of the city. Durham, as with many places in Britain, is beautifully eccentric. It is, in truth, somewhere it is difficult not to fall in love with as Ferijen posted the other day. p.s. for anybody interested in these things Durham City Vision is the site which details the changes they propose making to the city.