ABSTRACT
The panorama from Wharton Park, just above the railway station, shows the historic Durham city set in a bowl, 30 metres at its lowest, rising to a rim of 90 metres at Gilesgate Moor, Little High Wood and Elvet Hill and the spine of the old A1 and Crossgate Moor. The extensive deposit of unconsolidated fluvio-glacial sands and gravels has been deeply serrated to provide a very varied relief. The deep, blind re-entrant of Flass Vale, between Wharton Park and Crossgate Moor, is a striking example of the deposits erosion; the railway requires a viaduct of eleven arches to span the mouth of the valley. Beyond, the railway illustrates the unconsolidated nature of the sediment in the choice of a deep cutting, rather than tunnel, through the western rim. The rim determines intervisibility from the centre, and its green horizon has been partly used in the delimitation of the city's conservation area.
