The Cathedral in Durham sits high above the River Wear, just to the south of Durham castle, and the two buildings present a formidable defensive position against attacks from the north. As David Edwards speculates, it is not clear how much the cathedral building is meant to glorify God and how much to stand up to the persistent Scottish invasions. At the time of the cathedral's construction, Durham stood as the one of the most important northern outposts of the Normans, who began construction on the castle and cathedral shortly after their victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The castle was begun in 1071 and given at its completion by William the Conqueror to the bishops of Durham, who served both as spiritual leaders and as lords over this diocese, commanding full armies and having more governing privileges than any other baron in England. The Norman Prince Bishop William St. Calais, who was exiled to France for a brief period of time, razed the older Anglo-Saxon church upon his return to Durham in 1092 to make way for the building of the cathedral that stands today. The cathedral itself was built fairly quickly, began in 1093 and completed in large part (and mostly as Bishop William had planned it) by 1133, with the two western towers added 1217-1222.

When Richard le Poore, former Bishop of Salisbury, became Bishop of Durham in 1228, the east chapel was in bad shape, so he began the construction that replaced it with the present Chapel of Nine Alters. By the time Thomas Langley came to the helm of the diocese in 1406, the western end of the cathedral was in danger of slipping down the steep hill and into the river due to the shallow foundations originally laid, so the buttresses that stand today were put in place. After the Reformation, Robert Horne and Williams Whittingham, the second and third Deans of Durham, tore down a good deal of the original ornamentation in the Cathedral. Additional damage to the interior was done in 1650 when Oliver Cromwell herded 4,000 Scots prisoners into the cathedral and denied them any source of heat, so they chopped up nearly every piece of wood in the building for their fires. Attempts at repair were made later on when Sir Gilbert Scott directed the 1870's construction of the present choir screen, not considered by many to be very attractive. The official guide to the Cathedral has this to say of the marble and alabaster screens: "The best that can be said of them is that they might not look so bad anywhere else".(Edwards)

Durham Cathedral is considered by many to be the foremost example of late-Norman cathedral architecture. Its resemblance to a castle can be seen in its thick stone walls and solid presence atop the cliffs over the river Wear. The constant threat of violence in Northern England led to a Norman architecture that was slow to incorporate the light and airy Gothic style that penetrated cathedral design in Kent and the rest of southern England. Thick carved pillars dominate the nave of Durham Cathedral and the relatively few small windows leave the interior dominated by a damp gloom more characteristic of a castle than a church. The carved stone vaultings of the aisles and nave don't soar like those of Canterbury and York but rather exude a notion of perpetuality and sheer strength akin to the thick doric columns of a Greek temple.