A TWO-day celebration is planned to mark the feast day of one of the region’s best loved saints.

St Cuthbert’s Day, March 20, falls on a Friday this year and a range of events are planned for the day itself and the following Saturday.

Durham Cathedral, which houses St Cuthbert’s shrine, will host a special evensong service and procession on the Friday, at 5.15pm. There will be music from the cathedral choir.

The next day, the Northumbrian Association will hold its annual St Cuthbert’s Day Walk and Pilgrimage from Chester-le-Street to Durham, leaving St Mary’s and St Cuthbert’s Church at 9.30am and reaching Durham Market Place at about 1.30pm.

There, in front of the Durham Light Infantry (DLI) statue, the Hotspur Award, awarded for services to the North-East, will be presented to The Rifles, the successor of the DLI.

St Cuthbert’s Banner will then be processed up to the cathedral, where it will be blessed and reinstated in a short service at 2.15pm.

Meanwhile, the cathedral cloisters will host a regional food and drink producers’ market from 10am to 4pm.

There will be free cathedral tours at 10am, 10.30am, 11am, 1pm and 3pm and a “pilgrimage walk” around the city centre riverbanks starting at the cathedral’s famous North Door at 10am.

Stonemasons will demonstrate their skills in the cloister garth from 10.30am to 12.30pm and again from 2.30pm to 4pm and storyteller Adam Bushnell will celebrate the life of St Cuthbert in the cathedral’s education centre from 10.30am to 3.30pm.

For more information, visit northumbrianassociation.com or durhamcathedral.co.uk