Durham, Give Up Your Secrets

In about 1980, I went to Raleigh, North Carolina on business and took a side trip to Durham to see the campus of Duke University. At a noonday service in the university chapel, I literally felt like I was in England. It's one of a few paranormal events I've experienced in my life. In 1988, the baseball movie "Bull Durham" came out, and it is an enduring favorite of mine. In 1998, I met Nancy, and in the 2000's, when she developed into a genealogist, she got me interested in my ancestors and the Ledbetter family tree. The books say that the name "Ledbetter" is derived from a craft, "Lead Beater." The Romans mined lead in England, and in the 19th century, there were many active lead mines in Durham and Northumberland counties. I learned that I am 12th-generation American and that, according to popular theory, the first Ledbetter immigrant to America probably landed in Virginia in about 1635-40. He is said to have married previously in Durham, England to a woman born there. My family history then traces through North Carolina to Tennessee to Texas, which I left in 1960 to come to Seattle as a UW student--and earned my bachelors degree in English Literature. Are these dots connected? If so, how? I have long wondered.



And so it came to pass that Nancy and I chose to stop overnight in Durham, England on our way from London to Edinburgh, Scotland. As our train neared the city of ~42,000, the terrain suddenly changed. Gone were the open sheep farms and panoramas of the gently rolling countryside. Here were heavily-treed hills, now and then offering glimpses of rooftops and homes where people obviously know how to construct buildings on steep slopes--as they do in Seattle. It was lovely. Is this the Ledbetter ancestral home? Collective DNA evidence may someday suggest it--or not.



Castle View B&B, Durham

B&B garden (foreground right), churchyard (center left),
and cathedral spires (center background)



Saint Margaret of Antioch,
with Durham Castle (left) and Durham Cathedral (right)



Pub, toward downtown

Toward Framwellgate Bridge



Framwellgate Bridge crossing Wear (pronounced like "we're") River
with Durham Castle atop hill



Durham Cathedral



Prebends Bridge, upriver from Framwellgate Bridge



Framwellgate Bridge, downriver from Prebends Bridge

Busker taking a smoke on Framwellgate Bridge



Downriver scene

Downstream from Framwellgate Bridge

Durham street scene



The Market on an August Saturday afternoon



Durham Cathedral

Durham Cathedral is a World Heritage Site



Durham Cathedral



Tomb, Durham Cathedral

Toward Durham Cathedral and Framwellgate Bridge

Durham Cathedral is built on a promontory on a peninsula created by a bend in the River Wear.
Construction began in 1093.



Old Fulling Mill, temporary site of the
Museum of Archeology, University of Durham

Prebends Bridge on the Wear River, Durham



In Durham, England, remembering family and friends