It is clear that Cathedral City was no ordinary commission for Sharp. It was his first significant commission as a planner (as opposed to as a writer) and he had a passion for Durham that led him to invest far more effort in the commission than was commercially sensible. One of the best-known of the reconstruction or advisory plans, it was a handsomely produced plan heavily focused on the master-planning of physical form and published in January 1945 . The City Council viewed it as a consultation document as they had not approved the proposals (Durham Advertiser 12/1/45). Sharp's appreciation of Durham was largely based upon its visual qualities. Not surprisingly, the Cathedral and to some degree the castle were central to this, though there was an appreciation of the roofscape and of the foil that domestic scaled building gave to the major monuments. Sharp also emphasised the historic and visual importance of the cathedral as part of emphasising the significance of Durham. Alongside a romantic engraving of the city he stated:
'Every Cathedral city was designed to be a perpetual memorial to the history, continuity, struggle and, in part anyway, the triumph of the Christian Faith, on which European civilisation is largely founded. So heightened is this function at Durham by nature of the tremendous setting that the question of its mutilation becomes a matter of moment not merely to Durham or Britain but to Christendom' (p.88-89).
Sharp thus prefigured the World Heritage Site status that Durham was later to receive, mobilising the concept in order to resist local pressure for developments such as the power station proposal.
His proposals for preservation were focused on the Peninsula containing the Cathedral, Castle and heart of the University and commercial centre, though a map of buildings of historic interest included buildings across the city, such as a concentration on the north side of Old Elvet, an historic street to the north-east of the peninsula. The setting of the Cathedral and Castle were given extensive discussion.
Beyond the peninsula he saw the need for extensive rebuilding, whilst acknowledging that some of the buildings to be cleared had architectural merit. His intention of clearing the upper part of Claypath, the historic approach to Durham from the north, and leaving it as open space seems particularly unsympathetic and lacking in understanding of historic form to modern sensibilities. His rationale was to open up views of the Cathedral a monumental approach common in other plans of the period. It is, however, an unusual approach for Sharp, (though in his plans for Exeter and Chichester he did propose new controlled views of their respective cathedrals).
A key element of the plan was his alternative to the County Council inner relief road. He produced an extensive critique of this elevated proposal in terms of its impact on the character of Durham, saying of his alternative that "it will belong" (p.41). Also important was the suggested limitation in population growth of Durham of 4,500 from 18,500 to 23,000. He saw the appropriate function of Durham as being as an administrative, shopping, educational, residential and tourist centre.
Further discussion on this plan can be found in:
Pendlebury, J. (2004). "Planning the Historic City: 1940s Reconstruction Plans in Britain." Town Planning Review 74(4): 371-393.
Pendlebury, J. (2004). "Reconciling history with modernity: 1940s plans for Durham and Warwick." Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 31(3): 331-348.
Pendlebury, J. & Larkham, P. “Reconstruction and the small town”, Paper for the 12th International Conference of Planning History, New Delhi, 10-15 December 2006