World Heritage Site Visitor Centre

Excellent films telling the story around St Cuthbert and the beginnings of Durham Cathedral. Very informative. Learnt a lot and made us want to visit Lindisfarne,St Cuthberts initial burial place.Great place to find out info about Durham, staff friendly and very helpful.

Lovely staff and knowledgeable volunteer guides. Interesting displays and exhibition. Pretty little medieval herb garden. Can buy tickets for tours of Durham Castle and souvenirs of Durham/gifts there.

Duram cathedral is utterly stunning. The history of the place is amazing. And the skill and genius of the builders,working with the limited technology of the time left me feeling very humble. Go there .

We stubbled across this, so glad we did. The lady was very informative. Showing us and a group facts about Durham on a 3d map. Which really helped us.

A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area which is selected by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as having cultural,[1]historical, scientific or other form of significance, and is legally protected by international treaties. The sites are judged important to the collective interests of humanity.To be selected, a World Heritage Site must be an already classified landmark, unique in some respect as a geographically and historically identifiable place having special cultural or physical significance (such as an ancient ruin or historical structure, building, city, complex, desert, forest, island, lake, monument, mountain, or wilderness area[2]). It may signify a remarkable accomplishment of humanity, and serve as evidence of our intellectual history on the planet.[3]The sites are intended for practical conservation for posterity, which otherwise would be subject to risk from human or animal trespassing, unmonitored/uncontrolled/unrestricted access, or threat from local administrative negligence. Sites are demarcated by UNESCO as protected zones.[4] The list is maintained by the international World Heritage Program administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 states parties" that are elected by their General Assembly.[5]The programme catalogues

Very helpful for the first day of my trip. I had a huge backpack and was allowed to drop it off at the locker and wandered around the city. Two young female and male staff were extremely friendly and nice. I love the souvenir that I bought there as well.However, the reason I gave two stars was my horrible experience with one old female white staff the next day. I asked for the same thing if I could drop my backpack at the locker, but she angrily said ‘this is not a place to drop off your personal item and go. As soon as you step out of this building, you have to bring your backpack.’ Astonished, me and my friend just said yes and left the place. In the meantime, I saw one white guy putting his bag in the locker. We were outside for a few seconds and then that guy came out without his backpack. So why didn't that old female staff stop him from doing so? The only possible explanation was the difference of races. Given that her talking and behaviour was very rude to us (non-whites) while she did not act in that way to the white guy, I felt that we were discriminated by the skin color. Given that this city is highly white dominant city, maybe her behaviour is acceptable in Durham? Such an awful experience and I sincerely hope that that old female white staff should get punished and correct her 19 century's racist behaviours.

Amazing historical city, fantastic cathedral, castle, shops and easy walkabout.

Although smaller than one would have liked, the information given was first class. I particularly liked the video story of Durham cathedral all done in lego characters. Well worth a visit!

Perfect place to start your visit of historic Durham. Very informative exposition.Cousin’s library is a beautiful gem located within this building. Definitely reserve some time to visit this.

A tiny place containing a condescending video and some awful amateur paintings. Absolutely nothing of intetest there which is astounding seeing that they have a thousand year old Anglo Norman Cathedral nextdoor to promote!