Lindisfarne Priory and Parish Church, Holy Island

Numerous pilgrimage routes converge on the most important of early English monasteries, including St Cuthbert’s Way, St Oswald’s Way and the Forth to Farne Way

Once England’s most famous monastery, Lindisfarne is still regarded by many as the country’s holiest place. The community attracts 150,000 pilgrims and visitors a year. Despite the crowds, a ghost of its monastic solitude can be glimpsed at high tide when the sea covers the tidal island’s causeway.

Highlights

• England’s foremost Celtic monastery
• Lindisfarne Priory ruins and parish church
• Retreat centres
• Home of St Cuthbert, St Aidan and other early saints
• St Cuthbert’s Isle and ruined chapel

The monastery was founded by St Aidan in about 635, an offshoot of Scotland’s celebrated Iona community. The monastery was made really famous by its sixth abbot, St Cuthbert, whose tomb became the scene of many miracles following his death in 687.

There is more than enough on Holy Island to keep a spiritually minded visitor occupied for several hours, even though the monastery itself was dissolved at the Reformation and mostly lies in picturesque ruins.

The former monastic church survived and is now St Mary’s parish church. Several Christian and retreat centres have opened up in the village in modern times. The village is compact, and most of the sites are a short walk from each other.

At Easter a barefoot pilgrimage crosses the mudflats in honour of northern England’s first saints, who made this lonely outcrop their home. A variety of other pilgrim routes are listed on britishpilgrimage.org. The island is formally called Holy Island, but its old name Lindisfarne is often used. There are other places with the name ‘Holy Island’ off Britain’s coast.

St Mary the Virgin parish church

The parish church is the best place to start a tour. It stands where Lindisfarne’s Christian story began, the site of St Aidan’s original church. He was given the island by St Oswald, the local king who wanted to convert his people to the new faith. Bamburgh, his capital, is 6 miles south along the coast.

Much of the church fabric dates from Norman times, with later medieval additions, but there are outlines of a Saxon doorway in the wall between chancel and nave. St Aidan’s original building was probably wooden. The church and abbey were abandoned in 875 because of Viking raids, and the saints’ bodies carried to safety on the mainland. By the time the monastery reopened as a Benedictine priory in the 12th century, St Cuthbert and St Oswald’s holy relics had found their way to Durham Cathedral, where they remain to this day.

A display case at the back of the church holds a high-quality copy of the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of the most famous hand-written books in the world. The original is in the British Library in London. It was written on Lindisfarne as a memorial to St Cuthbert soon after his death, according to an inscription added in the 10th century. There is a museum about the Gospels in the village (the Lindisfarne Centre, described below).

Lindisfarne Priory

After the church, the next place to visit is the ruined abbey. Its small museum/visitor centre has some important artefacts from monastic times. It is run by English Heritage, and sells tickets to the abbey ruins.

Outside the visitor centre stand the impressive ruins of the abbey. Their most distinctive feature is the ‘rainbow arch’, a fragile-looking span of stones that has somehow survived centuries of neglect. It used to be part of the crossing tower in the middle of the priory. It is made of red sandstone, which inspired the colourful nickname – a bright if monochrome rainbow.

The solid stone pillars and carvings of the ruins are reminiscent of the great cathedral at Durham. It is possible that the priory was built by the same team of masons, since both places are closely linked by St Cuthbert.

When you have finished in the abbey ruins, walk past the parish church to the sea. Just offshore, in the direction of the mainland, is a small rocky outcrop called St Cuthbert’s Isle. This contains the ruins of a tiny 7th-century hermitage chapel, marked by a modern wooden cross. The isle, like Lindisfarne itself, can only be reached at low tide when it is possible to walk across, as described overleaf.

As so often with the holiest places, Lindisfarne suffered atrocity on an unthinkable scale. The first major Viking raid took place here in 793. The slaughter of the monks and desecration of the saints’ sanctuaries shocked the whole of Christian Europe. “Hurricanes and flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying through the air,” runs the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s entry for the year. They were portents of doom: the sack of Lindisfarne marks the first day of the Viking Age.

For centuries afterwards, raiders from the sea fell on northern Europe like the lash of God, murdering and plundering defenceless coastal communities almost at will. The last Viking invasion took place in 1066, after nearly 300 years of terror.

Churches and retreats

Today Lindisfarne is the focus of a gentle English revival of Celtic Christianity, much inspired by the activities of its mother house on Iona in Scotland. St Aidan himself trained on Iona and worshipped in the Celtic tradition before founding Lindisfarne’s community. Today there is no monastery on Lindisfarne as such, but several monks and nuns live and work here. Christians of all denominations visit in droves.

The island’s Roman Catholic church is a modern building dedicated to St Aidan, and holds daily prayer services. There is a retreat building and chapel run by the United Reformed Church, called the St Cuthbert’s Centre. And numerous other retreat houses have opened their doors to the faithful here; see the directions box below for more details.

Further information about the island, and in particular the Lindisfarne Gospels, is found at the Lindisfarne Centre, which is run by the local community. It contains the Lindisfarne Gospels Exhibition, which has another facsimile of the famous book and an interactive version, along with a modern scriptorium or writing workshop.

Lindisfarne saints

Numerous saints lived and were buried on this island. None of their graves can be found here any more, but the main ones associated with Lindisfarne are as follows:

• St Aidan (died 651), founder and abbot of Lindisfarne.
• St Oswald (died 642), the king who gave the island to St Aidan, and whose head was buried here – now at Durham Cathedral.
• St Finan of Lindisfarne (died 661) and St Colman (died 676) the second and third abbots after St Aidan.
• St Cedd (died 664) and St Chad (died 672) were two brothers who studied as monks here before going to evangelise further south.
• St Wilfrid (died 709) was brought up and educated at Lindisfarne and became bishop of York, then later Hexham. St Cuthbert Around 20 saints are associated with the island in total, but most famous of all is

St Cuthbert

He was known for healing miracles during his lifetime and particularly after his death. He lived on Lindisfarne for much of his life, but often sought to escape from the world. Little wonder, given that one of his biggest tasks was to convert the monastery from Celtic to Roman practice following the Synod of Whitby in 664. The resentment and unhappiness of his fellow monks must have been tangible.

As mentioned he would often retreat to St Cuthbert’s Isle, though it is within shouting distance of the monastery. Seeking more intense solitude, he moved for a time to Inner Farne Island, which is visible across the sea on a clear day, 7 miles to the south.

St Cuthbert had an unusual affinity with animals and the natural elements. One story recounted by Bede tells how the saint would get up in the middle of the night and walk down to the sea, where he would immerse himself and sing psalms.

“At daybreak he came out, knelt down on the sand, and prayed. Then two otters bounded out of the water, stretched themselves out before him, warmed his feet with their breath, and tried to dry him on their fur” (from Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, in The Age of Bede).

This scene took place at a rocky bay at Coldingham, with a medieval illustration of the bathing saint. St Cuthbert spent his final days on Inner Farne Island, where he passed away in the arms of his visiting brethren on 20 March 687, now his saint’s day. Bishop of Lindisfarne for the last two years of his life, a charismatic leader, preacher, healer and worker of miracles, St Cuthbert’s true spiritual home was the wild shore.

(To read more about St Cuthbert, visit the Durham Cathedral Pilgrimage in a Day route page.)

On St Cuthbert’s Isle

I visited Lindisfarne at the end of a six-week trip around Wales and Scotland. Tiring of the tourist groups, coaches and tea rooms on a busy Sunday afternoon, I took a leaf out of the saint’s book and waded across to the tiny St Cuthbert’s Isle.

On the far shore behind the wall of his ancient hermitage, I sat and contemplated the view St Cuthbert turned to in solitude, invisible to all but seabirds. It is connected by dry land for a much shorter period than the main island.

Encouraged by the apparent seclusion, and after weeks spent following the saints’ footsteps across Celtic wilderness, I stripped and waded into the sea, curious to experience what had so inspired St Cuthbert. I can’t imagine many people have copied his example over the intervening centuries, but it felt like a moment out of time. I crossed again to the main island and looked back at St Cuthbert’s retreat. The sun broke through seemingly impenetrable grey cloud and lit up the simple wooden cross. The practice of devotional bathing is something of a British and Irish speciality in early Christian culture, with around 40 examples recorded in various saints’ lives. It is a topic explored with enthusiasm in my book The Naked Hermit (SPCK: 2019), recreating the performance of this chilly but refreshing ritual at a number of Celtic sites. 

Directions

Lindisfarne Priory (English Heritage), Church Lane, Holy Island TD15 2RX

Priory ruins: www.english-heritage.org.uk (search for Lindisfarne)

Parish church: www.stmarysholyisland.org

W3W: printer.tribune.testy

GPS: 55.6693N 1.8014W

The gap between high tides allows around six hours on the island, enough to see the main sights. For safe crossing times over the causeway, see www.lindisfarne.org.uk. Note that these times do not apply to the pilgrimage walking route, which requires local knowledge to cross safely, according to Northumberland County Council, and should never be attempted during a rising tide.

If you want to experience something of the island’s Celtic tranquillity, stay the night or remain on the island during a high tide, when the crowds are much lighter.

The English Heritage visitor centre and the priory grounds are open daily for most of the year, but with limited opening times in the winter. For ticket prices and full opening times see the

English Heritage website or call the centre on 01289 389200.

For details of the St Cuthbert’s retreat centre and United Reformed Church generally, see www.holyisland-stcuthbert.org or call 01289 389254. The centre offers use of a multipurpose hall, a chapel and a gallery, and can advise on local accommodation. It is on the corner of Prior Lane and Lewin’s Lane.

For more retreat centres, accommodation and much else, visit www.holy-island.info or buy the Retreat Association’s comprehensive annual guide to UK retreats (www.retreats.org.uk, tel: 01494 569056).

The Lindisfarne Centre, with the Gospels exhibition, is on Marygate, Holy Island TD15 2SD (www.lindisfarne-centre.com, tel: 01289 389004).

There are several guides are available that describe the St Cuthbert’s Way pilgrimage route from Melrose, including St. Cuthbert’s Way: Official Guide by Ron Shaw.