For visitors to the North East of England historic Durham City is recognised instantly by its magnificent Norman cathedral, called the most beautiful in Christendom and at the centre of a World Heritage Site. Rising from a thickly treed peninsular gorge, with a medieval castle and the city campus of famous Durham University, Durham Cathedral soars over a small, bustling cobbled stone city… punctuated by back-street “vennels”, fronted by Elizabethan commercial houses, its perennially busy central market square inhabited equally by seasonal students, tourists and market traders.

The jewel of this city centre is surrounded by a ring of twelve ex-mining villages, themselves at the heart of a long industrial heritage that matches Durham’s ecclesiastical history, drama for drama. Connecting the villages to the city centre is the North East's meandering River Wear, making its way through countryside as beautiful as the city itself.

The Durham Necklace Park - 12 miles of stunning riverside environment - is a new project funded to draw together a series of existing spaces and places along the chain of the River Wear, stretching from Finchale Priory to Sunderland Bridge, with Durham’s city centre as its fulcrum.

The project, part of Durham 2020 Vision has been created with the help of local people, who have felt increasingly isolated from their own outdoors and wanted to reclaim their river, paths, heritage and environment. Much that is precious, unique and fascinating already exists along these twelve miles. What has been lacking is a way of joining up these assets, of engaging local landowners and working with the Park's vibrant communities.

The Necklace Park is enabled by historic rights of way: public paths and bridleways: and is based on “deals” amongst landowners, agencies and local people. The Park opens up access to the previously inaccessible, unmapped, hidden, derelict or private and to explore and celebrate. A key deal for all is that no mark be left; that the Park be ”ephemeral” and environmentally secure, while not inhibiting exploration and enjoyment through diverse transient activities. So the Park is often called a “virtual park”, and soon it will be mirrored online through “The Virtual Necklace Park”, where all of the information, activities and interventions that can not be made in the physical park can happen with impunity!

Over the next two years, the Necklace Park team will be working in partnership with local people, agencies, interest groups, businesses and authorities to develop projects of lasting value... while increasing participation and access to those special places within our spectacular City of Durham.

The Necklace Park is run by a professional team. With Cornerstone Strategies and through Dott 07 (Designs of the time), the team launched the park publicly in May 2007 part of a North Eastern move to make sustainable tourism a reality.

Mapping the Necklace is now preparing for the Dott 07 showcase in October and welcomes Mappers old and new to celebrate what took place in May!