Ushaw Historic House, Chapels and Gardens
About
Ushaw stands in open country a few miles west of Durham City and was, for two centuries, St Cuthbert's College — the principal seminary for the training of Roman Catholic priests in the north of England. Its origins reach back further than the buildings suggest. The English College at Douai in Flanders had educated English Catholics since 1568, through the long period when doing so at home was illegal; when the French Revolution closed it, the community fled to England, and in 1808 established itself here.
What that history produced is one of the most concentrated collections of Gothic Revival ecclesiastical architecture anywhere in Britain. Three generations of the Pugin family worked at Ushaw: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, the designer of the interiors of the Palace of Westminster and the most influential Gothic Revival architect of the nineteenth century, followed by his son Edward Welby Pugin and his grandson Peter Paul Pugin. Between them, and alongside other architects including Joseph Hansom, they filled the site with chapels, fittings, metalwork, glass and furniture of a quality that reflects a wealthy institution commissioning the best available talent over decades.
The college also accumulated a remarkable library, running to tens of thousands of volumes and including medieval manuscripts, incunabula and early printed books, much of it carried out of Douai or assembled afterwards. Alongside it are collections of vestments, silver, paintings and objects relating to the survival of Catholicism in England through penal times.
The seminary closed in 2011, and Ushaw opened to the public in 2014 as a heritage attraction. Visitors now have access to the main house, the chapels, exhibition spaces, a theatre and extensive gardens and woodland, with a digital guide available. There is a cafe, and dogs are welcome in the gardens and parts of the main house. Admission is cheaper booked in advance online, and given the scale of the buildings and grounds most visitors find a couple of hours goes quickly. It is a strikingly quiet place, which is part of its appeal.
Ushaw is also less well known than it deserves to be, sitting a few miles from one of the most visited cathedral cities in England while receiving a fraction of the traffic. Visitors who make the short journey out from Durham generally find they have the chapels largely to themselves, which for interiors of this quality is an increasingly rare experience anywhere in the country.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Book online in advance — it saves £2 on an adult ticket and £1 on a child ticket compared with paying on arrival.
- The cafe closes at 15:30, half an hour before the site, so do not leave refreshments until the end of the afternoon.
- Ask on arrival which chapels are open. Some close for services, concerts or private events, and the smaller chapels are among the best things here.
- Allow at least two hours. The buildings are extensive and the grounds are included in the ticket.
- Use the East Entrance if you need step-free access; it reaches the chapels, cafe, theatre and exhibition spaces, with accessible parking beside it.
- Dogs are welcome in the gardens and in parts of the main house, which is unusual for a heritage site of this type.
- Combine the visit with Durham City, six kilometres away, for the cathedral and castle — the contrast between medieval and Gothic Revival is instructive.
- Under-5s go free, and groups of fifteen or more booked ahead get 10 per cent off.
Highlights
Three Generations of Pugins
Very few buildings anywhere carry work by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, his son Edward Welby Pugin and his grandson Peter Paul Pugin, and Ushaw carries all three. A. W.
N. Pugin was the defining figure of the Gothic Revival, responsible for the interiors of the Palace of Westminster and for an argument, pursued with enormous energy, that Gothic was the only morally serious architecture for a Christian nation. Seeing his work alongside that of his descendants, in one place and across several decades, lets visitors trace how a family practice developed and diverged.
St Cuthbert's Chapel
The principal chapel is the architectural centre of the site, a large and richly furnished space that replaced an earlier Pugin chapel later in the nineteenth century while retaining significant Pugin fittings. Stained glass, metalwork, woodwork, tiles and furnishings combine into the kind of total designed interior that the Gothic Revival aspired to and rarely achieved at this scale outside a cathedral.
That it was built for a seminary rather than a public church says a great deal about the resources and ambition of nineteenth-century English Catholicism.
The Smaller Chapels
Beyond the main chapel, Ushaw contains a sequence of smaller chapels of remarkable quality, several designed by Edward Welby Pugin and Peter Paul Pugin, each a compact and complete Gothic Revival interior in its own right. Moving between them is one of the pleasures of a visit, because the changes of scale, colour and mood are considerable and the smaller spaces often make the strongest impression.
Some may be closed for services or events, so it is worth asking on arrival which are open on the day.
The Library
Ushaw's library is among the most significant historic collections in the north of England, running to tens of thousands of volumes and including medieval manuscripts, incunabula and early printed books, a good deal of it descended from the English College at Douai. The Big Library, designed by Joseph Hansom, is an architectural set piece as well as a working collection.
The books document not only theology and scholarship but the practical business of educating English Catholic clergy abroad through centuries when doing so at home was against the law.
Collections
Ushaw preserves the buildings and collections of St Cuthbert's College, a Roman Catholic seminary founded in 1808 as successor to the English College at Douai and closed in 2011. Architecturally its most important asset is a concentration of Gothic Revival work by three generations of the Pugin family — Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Edward Welby Pugin and Peter Paul Pugin — alongside contributions by other nineteenth-century architects including Joseph Hansom, expressed in St Cuthbert's Chapel and a sequence of smaller chapels with their fittings, glass, metalwork and furnishings.
The library holds tens of thousands of volumes including medieval manuscripts, incunabula and early printed books, much descended from Douai.
Further collections cover vestments, ecclesiastical silver, paintings, sculpture and material documenting English Catholic history through the penal era.
The Chapels
St Cuthbert's Chapel and the sequence of smaller chapels, showing Gothic Revival design by three generations of Pugins and their contemporaries.
Ushaw and English Catholicism
Exhibition spaces covering the college's descent from Douai, the penal laws, the training of priests, and the collections of books, vestments, silver and art the institution accumulated.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.