So I have had my penultimate week of this sabbatical. I wanted this week to see how sacred space inspires you to keep finding that peace you’ve encountered while away from the daily grind. When I’m back at work I need to find peace amongst the demands on my time and energy.
Holy Island after Easter Sunday for me became more peaceful. The hoards still come as tourists walking at you like a swarm of locusts, but when the tide goes in the place becomes deeply spiritual and gives you a calm within you it is hard to describe.
Evening Prayer this week with just a few of us, has been a special time. The lectionary has reminded us post Easter of the marvellous works of God and his power. On Monday we had Psalm 135 where Og was smited! “He struck down many nations and killed mighty kings -Sihon king of the Amorites, Og king of Bashan, and all the kings of Canaan and he gave their land as an inheritance, an inheritance to his people Israel.” Then on Wednesday, we recited Psalm 105: “Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.”
Holy Island when the tide goes in is the most peaceful and sacred spot we know. We spent a long time one evening this week on the causeway watching the sky post sunset. To walk along the causeway alone in silence was amazing. I’ve always come here to find peace and this visit has given me lots of it again. We both love the beach by St Cuthberts Isle. I proposed to Lis on it on a very cold November day! Cuthbert found peace on it retreating from a busy ministry on the island. The island is connected to Lindisfarne at low tide in the same way Lindisfarne is connected to the mainland, but it is an island at high tide. It was here, within sight of the main island, that Cuthbert first attempted living as a hermit. He soon realized it was still too close to Lindisfarne; monks could still shout over to him. After that he went to Inner Farne, where no one had ever stayed for long.
I wanted this week to see what Inner Farne was like so I booked a Farne Islands boat trip on Wednesday from Seahouses. I wasn’t expecting the sea fret to be so thick you couldn’t see a thing! Allegedly we passed seabirds and seals as we went round the islands! You could see a bit more on Inner Farne. Cuthbert spent over 10 years living as a hermit on Inner Farne and was on the island when, in 684, he was informed he had been elected Bishop of Lindisfarne. Cuthbert had moved to the island in 676 and died there in 687.
Even just spending an hour on Inner Farne, I got a small glimpse of what being there as a hermit might be like. The island is bleak apart from an unbelievable number of puffins! It’s now run by the National Trust and rangers live five days out of seven a week there. We were told they’ve no running water but they do have 4G!
This week I’ve spent time trying to walk in the footsteps of some of the Northumbrian saints. How did they find peace and bring the sacred to what was a pagan environment? On Tuesday I wanted to visit the church at Chester le Street.
On 8 June 793, the Vikings came to Lindisfarne. The monks at the priory were unprepared and some were killed and younger ones sold as slaves. The priory was partly burnt down. In the 9th century, there was a gradual movement of precious things to the mainland. Lindisfarne was abandoned in 875. The body of Cuthbert with other treasures which had survived the Viking attacks were carried by the monks onto the mainland. This amazing piece of modern scripture can be seen under the Cuthbert window in St Mary’s Church on Holy Island.
For over 100 years the travellers settled at Chester le Street. I never realised they stayed that long. It’s also said that in fear of further attack they look Cuthbert inland to Ripon, before finally arriving at Durham, where his remains now rest.
Attached to the church in Chester le Street is what was an anchorage, one of the few surviving to this day and described as the most complete example of its kind in England. It was created by blocking off one corner of a church in the late 14th century, with an extra room added externally in the 16th century. Originally it was on two levels, but the floor was removed at some point to allow more space and light. From 1383 to 1547 it was occupied by six anchorites, each walled in to the anchorage for life, able to watch services through a squint into the church. Imagine that!
Alas we haven’t spotted the church and anchorage shut at 12.30pm. We arrived at 12.33 and didn’t see either!
We visited Finchale Priory, just north of Durham on Tuesday lunchtime. It owes its origin to St. Godric, who was born about 1070. After years of travel as a sailor, merchant and pilgrim, he felt called to the solitary life. He eventually settled at Finchale, where he lived to about 100. About 25 years after his death his hermitage became a priory and by the 14th century it was serving as a holiday retreat for monks from Durham.
I didn’t find Finchale very sacred. The ruined nave was full of screaming children and people sunbathing eating hot dogs bought from a kiosk opposite. I’m all for multi use of sacred space, but…
An article in the Northern Echo tells us that the college is a hidden gem, surrounded by seclusion. It is tucked away in mature countryside about five miles west of Durham city, hidden by physical barriers of trees, walls and gatehouses which are a response to the centuries of persecution endured by Catholics.
In the 1790s, Catholicism might have been tolerated but it was still viewed by the authorities with suspicion, and so the new college was designed to look uncontroversially like a Georgian country house so that it didn’t attract too much unwanted attention. Its chapel, therefore, was undemonstratively tucked away at the back.
The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 formally ended the centuries of discrimination, and Ushaw responded by making a big, in-yer-face statement of the Catholics’ arrival. With student numbers growing, in 1844, the college’s fifth president, Monsignor Charles Newsham, employed Augustus Pugin – the hottest architect in the country after his success with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the fashionable mock Gothic style – to build a proper place of worship on the front of the building.
Pugin didn’t disappoint, creating a remarkably grand, richly decorated but ultimately peaceful chapel.”
There are thirteen others, all awesome! The college is now owned by Durham University and is open to visitors. I will be back.
From Ushaw, we went to find the delightful church at Heavenfield. St Oswald’s Church is on the site believed to be the location where King Oswald raised a large wooden cross and called his troops to pray before the battle of Heavenfield in 633.
On the battle site there is now a tranquil hilltop church you have to walk through a field of sheep to get to. It’s been a place of prayer and pilgrimage for centuries. I was glad to find it.
On Thursday, we discovered Brinkburn Priory, a surprise at the bottom of a long, wooded track. The history of Brinkburn Priory dates back to 1135, when William Bertram of Mitford established an Augustinian priory in a loop of the River Coquet, in secluded, deeply wooded countryside. According to surviving documents the new priory was a daughter house of 'St Mary de Insula', which probably referred to the priory at Pentney, Norfolk. We had the priory to ourselves. It was quite damp as was the Manor House next to it riddled with dry rot. The site is now managed by English Heritage. The manager made us very welcome. I’m not sure she gets many visitors and we spent quite a bit in her little shop!
On the way back to Holy Island, it was nice to discover Alnmouth and to find the little Methodist chapel up a tiny lane. One of my friends becomes its minister in September.
Our final trips this week were on Saturday. We began by visiting St Aidan’s Church in Bamburgh. There has been worship on this site since 635 when St Aidan of Iona was invited by King Oswald of Northumbria to bring Christianity to his kingdom. St Aidan is said to have died here in AD 651 whilst leaning against a forked timber beam that supported the outside wall of his church. That beam now forms part of the tower roof and is the only part of the 7th century church to survive. Since it survived at least two fires the beam became an object of veneration and was said to have miraculous healing properties.
The spot where Aidan is said to have died is commemorated by a shrine within the present church, built in the late 12th century as part of a monastic cell of Augustinian monks.
Then we went to find the churches in Ford and Etal. The church at Ford is massive, clearly having been supported by the neighbouring castle. It had an interesting way of interacting with the poor…
The church at Etal was simpler. Both are set in very well heeled villages!
It’s been good to be able to be based for another week on Holy Island. I’ve found being here towards the end of sabbatical helpful. I don’t though want to leave. It always feels like coming home when we visit. The place where we’ve mostly stayed over the last few years has been a place of sanctuary for us. The owners are moving into it in the autumn so this has been our last stay in it. You can’t get closer to the church!
We ended the week on the beach which was lovely. I can’t believe I’m about to begin my last week of this journey. What will be our story when others read of us one day? Will we have been as courageous as the saints of old or as close to God as them? They brought the Gospel to people who’d never heard it. We have that same challenge in our age. What sort of church will there be beyond us? I guess that’s up to us. The saints of Northumbria knew those marvellous works and they were compelled to share them because they knew God was at work. Holy Island especially for me is a reminder of God being there. Being here this and last week has to inspire me to try to get my churches to look up and around and see him again. As a poem I found here years ago says “you didn’t come here to get away, you came here in order to go back.”
A place of worship was founded on this site of the present church in 635 by Saint Aidan. St Aidan was called to Bamburgh from Iona by King Oswald to establish Christianity in his newly united kingdom of Northumbria.
No trace of that wooden building can be now be seen - other than perhaps a beam in the Baptistery. Tradition has it that thsi is the beam that St Aidan was leaning against when he died and it is said to have miraculously survived two fires.
The site of St Aidan's death is marked by a simple shrine within the present church. The church building that is now seen dates from the end of the 12th century
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