St Ebbe’s monastery ruins, Coldingham Priory Church

Pilgrimage is never so bracing as it is when a storm is blowing in from the North Sea, Celtic spirituality in the raw that features on the Forth to Farne Way

Highlights

• St Ebbe’s monastery ruins
• Holy well
• Site of St Cuthbert’s bathing
• Coldingham Priory church and ruins

There are two very different experiences to be had at Coldingham. The first is pure Celtic: a dramatic headland where a tiny monastic community under St Ebbe eked out an existence during the 7th century. A holy well, the ruins of a tiny chapel, and a sacred bay where a saint once bathed are all that remain out here, hard to find but breathtaking in their clifftop setting.

The second is the lovingly restored parish church in Coldingham village, 2 miles from the Celtic site, which used to be part of Coldingham Priory. This was a much later Benedictine monastery, founded in 1097 by monks from Durham Cathedral.

St Ebbe’s community lasted a mere 40 years. It was a double monastery, with men and women living in separate quarters. The site of her building is hard to identify, the overgrown foundations of a few walls barely visible beside a little-used footpath. They sit on a headland known as Kirk Hill, 500m south of the prominent lighthouse on St Abb’s Head, which is named after the abbess.

Even for a ruin, this is a veritable ghost, just a scattering of boulders near the path, all that remains of a 14th-century chapel built by the later priory to honour their monastic ancestors. It sits in the middle of the Celtic site, whose earlier walls are even harder to identify.

In reality, this little community achieved little, particularly when compared to Lindisfarne 22 miles to the south. St Ebbe apparently had difficulty keeping discipline and had to draw on St Cuthbert, Abbot of Lindisfarne, for help.

One famous incident involving St Cuthbert took place during one of his pastoral visits. A monk followed him down by the sea before dawn, praying and singing psalms in the water. “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” (Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, in The Age of Bede). It is an image to conjure with, especially when standing by the bay in question during a storm, and was depicted in a medieval illuminated manuscript.

He describes the beach as sandy, though the coast along here is rocks and pebbles. The bay nearest Kirk Hill is thought to be the place where St Cuthbert performed his bathing rituals, sometimes called Horsecastle Bay. I returned when the sea was calm and the coast was quiet to strip and follow St Cuthbert’s footsteps into these same waters. Conveniently, there is a long platform of smooth rock at one side of the rocky seabed that I could follow deep into the timeless rhythm of the chilly Celtic waves. The ritual is described over many pages in my book The Naked Hermit (2019).

There is a little well chamber further along the coast to the south, covered by a concrete roof. This was popular with pilgrims, who came to remember the early saints. It still flows and is sometimes said to be dedicated to St Ebbe herself. A second well supposedly emerges near the bathing bay, though I missed it.

One other famous saint stayed with St Ebbe for a short time, her niece St Etheldreda. She traveled up the east coast while fleeing from her marriage to King Egfrith, and became a nun here in 672. Within a year, she had moved back south and founded the monastery at Ely.

Bede, writing early in the 8th century, describes Coldingham as deserted. There is one highly dubious story told about the monastery during the 9th century – long after it had almost certainly closed. According to this later medieval yarn by Matthew Paris, the nuns and abbess were so afraid of being raped by an impending Viking raid, that they mutilated their own faces. It is the origin of the phrase ‘to cut off your nose to spite your face.’

The date given is 870, but there is no evidence to support the story: it is one of those tales so vivid it ought to be true, but probably isn’t.

The Celtic site would at least be easy to spot if approached from the sea. It has a spectacular view along the coast, a location made all the more dramatic due to a howling gale when I visited. The air shook whenever a huge wave crashed below. It is not always like this, of course, but it made it easier to understand why Durham’s monks chose to ignore this clifftop when they re-established a Coldingham community 2 miles south. And they did so on a grander scale too: it was one of Scotland’s largest monasteries at the Reformation.

Though much of this later priory is in ruins, a section was rebuilt in the 18th century to form the town’s parish church. It has a magnificent north wall, overwhelming in the more modest dimensions of the rebuilt church. It is hard to believe, but this was just a small section of the complete monastery church – part of the choir.

The monastery shared the relics of St Ebbe with Durham Cathedral, after their rediscovery in the 11th century. Her saint’s day is celebrated on 25 August. The relics were lost at the Reformation.

Directions

Footpath to Ruined Monastery

Start: B6438, St Abbs TD14 5PL

W3W: mess.rezoning.clasping

GPS: 55.9121N 2.1347W

Horsecastle Bay: W3W: rescuer.gambles.spines

GPS: 55.9093N 2.1331W

Address: Bridge Street, Coldingham TD14 5NE

Website: www.coldinghamparish.co.uk

W3W: tame.deleting.sober

GPS: 55.8865N 2.1552W

The best way to reach the ruined early monastery is from the little village of St Abbs by the sea, east of Coldingham. Take the coastal footpath, signposted on the left just before you enter the village. After 1.1km, the path descends to the shoreline and a series of rocky bays. The last bay before the steep slope of Kirk Hill is said to be where St Cuthbert bathed. From here the main path goes straight ahead, away from the coast, but the ruined monastery site is on the coastal side and you need to take the steep path right as it curves up Kirk Hill. After 350m, in a much flatter area of grassland, you should be able to make out some ruins on your left beside the path, half buried black boulders. If you meet up with the main coastal path again, you’ve gone about 250m too far.

The priory church in Coldingham is in the middle of the village, hard to see from the road but behind the small car park at the junction of High Street, Bridge Street and School Street. A sign outside and online guides say it is open 2pm–4pm on Weds from May–September, and 2pm–4pm on Sun in July and August.