Town Hall and Guildhall
Durham Town Hall is modelled on a medieval hall and has an impressive hammerbeam roof but it is actually of Victorian origin (1851). The interior of the Guildhall to the left (the building with the balcony) dates partly from 1665 during the time of Bishop John Cosin but the first Guildhall had been built on this site in 1356.
From medieval times guild members adhered to strict rules and had certain ceremonial duties to perform such as parading in the annual Corpus Christi procession, They paraded their banners in the market place and then formed a procession to Palace Green where they were met by the prior and monks of Durham for whom they performed religious plays.
Durham received its first known city charter in 1179, followed by a second charter in 1565 and then a charter in 1602 that introduced the office of mayor who was elected by the guild members called Aldermen.
Inside the Guildhall are kept the ceremonial sword, city charter and official weights and measures of Durham City. Also here are the pikes of the mayor’s bodyguard, the Durham mayor being the only English mayor other than the Lord Mayor of London to have an appointed band of bodyguards.
Linking the Guildhall to the Town Hall is the Mayor’s Chamber, an oak panelled room with portraits of former mayors and dignitaries. The chamber dates from the 1500s and the panelling was added in 1752 by an Alderman George Bowes, who later became mayor. Bowes was an ancestor of our present Queen. The fireplace in the chamber dates from the 1600s and was originally in Durham’s Red Lion Inn