Durham

One of the greatest Norman cathedrals in Europe, vast and dark and almost brutal, its huge patterned columns marching over the tombs of St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede. Nine hundred years old and barely changed. Free to enter, and yes, the cloisters played Hogwarts, but the building needs no film to overwhelm you.

Best shot The cathedral looming over the wooded river from Prebends Bridge, or the nave columns receding into the dark.

• Touristy

The Norman castle facing the cathedral across Palace Green, a fortress-palace of the prince-bishops, now a university college. See it on a guided tour: the great hall, the Norman chapel, the crooked Black Staircase. You can also sleep in it out of term.

A vast Victorian gothic-revival seminary just outside the city, its chapels designed by Pugin and his sons: spire, stained glass and tiled floors mostly empty of people now. One of the most spectacular gothic interiors in the north, and hardly anyone goes. The dark-academia motherlode.

Best shot The Pugin chapel interior, ribs and tiles and stained glass, down the empty nave.

• Quiet

The ruined arches of a 13th-century priory in a loop of the Wear north of the city, free to wander, wooded and quiet, built where a reformed pirate turned hermit is said to have seen off demons. A good bleak riverside walk with a ruin at the end.

Best shot The roofless priory arches against the trees, reflected in the river.

• Quiet
• Solo-friendly

A medieval manor on the edge of the centre, with a 14th-century great hall and walled gardens, and a resident White Lady said to walk on the anniversary of a wedding gone wrong. Small, old and atmospheric.

• Quiet

The medieval city survives in its vennels, the narrow stepped passages threading between the market place, the river and the cathedral peninsula. Duck into them. They are the quickest way to lose the tourists and the fastest way back into the Middle Ages.

Best shot A narrow stepped vennel framing a slice of the cathedral tower.

• Solo-friendly

The wooded banks of the Wear wrap right around the cathedral rock, and the walk from Prebends Bridge gives the classic view: the great tower rising out of the trees over black water. Walter Scott had his lines about it carved into the bridge. Best at dusk, or in mist.

Best shot The cathedral over the river from Prebends Bridge, at dawn mist or dusk.

• Quiet
• Solo-friendly

A genuine 14th-century castle turned hotel a short drive north, four-posters and stone spiral stairs and suits of armour, plus the Lily of Lumley, a murdered noblewoman said to haunt the place. It leans into all of it with medieval banquets. Absurd, grand and worth the drive.

• Adults only
• Quiet

Out of term, University College opens some of its rooms in the actual Norman castle to guests. Sleep behind the walls of a thousand-year-old fortress and breakfast in the great hall. Simple rooms, unbeatable address.

• Quiet

A boutique hotel of wildly themed rooms in an old townhouse a minute from the cathedral, more theatrical than tasteful and the better for it. Ask for one of the darker, more baroque rooms.

• Adults only
• Quiet

A tiny, dark 17th-century pub steps from the cathedral, reckoned one of the most haunted in the country, with a snug barely big enough to turn around in and a roster of ghosts. Proper ale, no frills, plenty of atmosphere.

• Solo-friendly
• Adults only

An unspoilt 1899 Victorian pub, tiny rooms and etched glass and coal fires, on the national inventory of historic interiors for good reason. No music, no food, just beer and the 19th century preserved in amber.

• Solo-friendly

A restaurant in a candlelit medieval undercroft cut into the riverbank below Saddler Street, stone vaults and river views. The most atmospheric dinner in the city, if not the cheapest.

• Adults only
• Quiet

One of the smallest cocktail bars in the country, a cramped dark box down by the river doing serious drinks. Squeeze in, or perch outside by the water.

• Adults only

A Victorian indoor market of 1851 under an ornate iron-and-glass roof, a warren of small stalls: secondhand books, records, curios, old jewellery and local makers. A good rainy-day rummage in the heart of the old city.

• Solo-friendly

A cluster of craft studios and workshops tucked down by the river, jewellers and printmakers and the like, where you can watch things being made and buy them at the source. Quiet and off the main drag.

• Solo-friendly
• Quiet