This sturdy and compact church is built of the local warm red sandstone. The feeling, both inside and out, is one of homeliness rather than grandeur. The original foundation, in 1122, was by Henry I, who permitted the establishment of a house for Augustinian canons. It became a cathedral in 1133. It is one of the smallest in England, mainly because most of the nave was pulled down by the Parliamentary forces when the city was besieged in the 1640s. The part remaining houses the chapel of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment.

Rebuilding in the thirteenth century suffered repeated setbacks as a result of Scottish raids and two serious fires. Eventually, by the late fourteenth century, the cathedral was more or less in its present form (except that the nave was still intact). THe tower was added in 1401 and originally had a spire.

Inside, outstanding features are the magnificent east window of medieval glass, fine fifteenth-century choir stalls with canopies and misericords and, uniquely, on the pillar capitals in the chancel, fourteenth-century carvings depicting the months of the year. On the back of the choir stalls are late fifteenth-century murals of St Cuthbert, St Anthony, St Augustine of Hippo and the twelve Apostles. The Brougham triptych is a richly carved early sixteenth-century Flemish altarpiece.

Excavation in 1989 at the west end of the nave permitted the construction of an undergroun treasury. It houses valuable cathedral and diocesan vestments and artefacts as well as the charter issued by Henry VII in 1541. Near the cathedral, the deanery is a former pele tower and the thirteenth-century fratry houses the cathedral library with a restaurant in the undercroft.

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