ABSTRACT
The World Heritage Site in Durham City (within County Durham in the north-east of England), consisting of the medieval cathedral and castle, attracts visitors in very large numbers, at almost any time of the year. The construction of the castle was ordered in 1072, the cathedral founded in 1093. The castle, despite many later additions (including its conversion into the first college of the University of Durham in 1837) still has the characteristic shape of the motte and bailey plan. The historic centre of the city is very small, as the medieval buildings occupy most of the top of a steep-sided peninsula formed by a narrow loop in the River Wear. The strategic importance of this site is obvious, but as is often the case, despite this, the scale of the peninsula is such that in the national mapping scheme it doesn’t look terribly impressive, and isn’t particularly well defined. Given the commercial nature of the Ordnance Survey operation, there is also the problem of data copyright for anyone wishing to publish work involving a terrain model of this important site.
