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Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important centre of Celtic Christianity under Aidan, Cuthbert, Eadfrith, and Eadberht of Lindisfarne. The island was originally home to a monastery, which was destroyed during the Viking expansion but re-established as a priory following the Norman Conquest of England. Other notable sites built on the island are St Mary the Virgin parish church (originally built in 635 CE and restored in 1860), Lindisfarne Castle, several lighthouses and other navigational markers, and a complex network of lime kilns. In the present day, the island is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a hotspot for historical tourism and bird watching. As of February 2020, the island had three pubs, a hotel and a post office as well as a museum.
In the 9th-century Historia Brittonum the island appears under its Old Welsh name Medcaut. The philologist Andrew Breeze, following up on a suggestion by Richard Coates, proposes that the name derived from Latin Medicata Insula (English: Healing Island), owing perhaps to the island's reputation for medicinal herbs.
The name Holy Island was in use by the 11th century when it appears in Latin as 'Insula Sacra'. The reference was to Saints Aidan and Cuthbert.
In the present day, Holy Island is the name of the civil parish and native inhabitants are known as Islanders. The Ordnance Survey uses Holy Island for both the island and the village, with Lindisfarne listed either as an alternative name for the island or as a name of 'non-Roman antiquity'. "Locally the island is rarely referred to by its Anglo-Saxon name of Lindisfarne" (according to the local community website). More widely, the two names are used somewhat interchangeably. Lindisfarne is invariably used when referring to the pre-conquest monastic settlement, the priory ruins and the castle. The combined phrase "the Holy Island of Lindisfarne" has begun to be used more frequently in recent times, particularly when promoting the island as a destination for tourists and pilgrims alike.
There is also a supposition that the nearby Farne Islands are fern-like in shape and the name may have come from there.
Despite these warnings, about one vehicle each month is stranded on the causeway, requiring rescue by HM Coastguard and / or the Seahouses RNLI lifeboat. A sea rescue costs approximately £1,900 (quoted in 2009, ), while an air rescue costs more than £4,000 (also quoted in 2009, ). Local people have opposed a causeway barrier, primarily on convenience grounds. One cause of issues is that the causeway may flood before the end of an officially "safe" period due to stormy weather.
Following the death of bishop Finan in 661, Colman became Bishop of Lindisfarne. There were significant liturgical and theological differences with the fledgling Roman party based at Canterbury. According to Frank Stenton: "There is no trace of any intercourse between these bishops the and the see of Canterbury". The Synod of Whitby in 663 changed this, as allegiance switched southwards to Canterbury and then to Rome. Colman departed his see for Iona, and for the next few years Lindisfarne had no bishop. Under a new line of bishops aligned with Canterbury Lindisfarne became the base for Christian evangelism in Northern England, and also sent a successful mission to Mercia. Monks from the Irish community of Iona Abbey settled on the island.
From the "Life of Cuthbert"'s reference to "Aldfrith, who now reigns peacefully", the work is considered to date from between 685 and 704. cited by While bishop and abbot, Cuthbert took it upon himself to align his bishopric with the see of Canterbury, and therefore with Rome, while leaving its Celtic leanings and traditions behind. After his death in 687 Cuthbert was initially buried in Lindisfarne. Due to the claim that Cuthbert's body was untouched by 'corruption', and also due to there being several miracles associated with those who had come to visit Cuthbert's shrine, the island became a major destination for pilgrimages for the next few hundred years.
During one of the many evacuations of Lindisfarne by the monks due to the increasing frequency of Viking raids upon the island at the time, in 793 Cuthbert's body was carried away by the monks, first to where they temporarily re-settled in the nearby village of Chester-le-Street, then to Durham Cathedral . Eadberht of Lindisfarne, the next bishop (and later saint), was buried in the place from which Cuthbert's body had been exhumed earlier in the same year (793). Tristram, Kate. "Eadberht", Little-Known Saints of the North, The Holy Isle of Lindisfarne
At that time the Diocese of York roughly encompassed the counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Hexham covered County Durham and the southern part of modern Northumberland up to the River Coquet, and eastwards into the Pennines. Whithorn covered most of Dumfries and Galloway region west of Dumfries itself. The remainder, Cumbria, northern Northumbria, Lothian and much of the Kingdom of Strathclyde formed the diocese of Lindisfarne.
In 737, Ceolwulf of Northumbria abdicated as King of Northumbria and entered the abbey at Lindisfarne. He died in 764 and was buried alongside Cuthbert. In 830, his body was moved to Norham, and later his head was translated to Durham Cathedral.
Tironian notes]] þæt folc earmlic bregdon, þæt wæron ormete þodenas ⁊ ligrescas, ⁊ fyrenne dracan wæron gesewene on þam lifte fleogende. Þam tacnum sona fyligde mycel hunger, ⁊ litel æfter þam, þæs ilcan geares on .vi. Idus Ianuarii, earmlice hæþenra manna hergunc adilegode Godes cyrican in Lindisfarnaee þurh hreaflac ⁊ mansliht.
("In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of the Northumbrians, and the wretched people shook; there were excessive whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and a little after those, that same year on 6th ides of January, the ravaging of wretched heathen men destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne.")
The generally accepted date for the Viking raid on Lindisfarne is 8 June; Michael Swanton writes: "vi id Ianr, presumably is an error for vi id Iun (8 June) which is the date given by the Annals of Lindisfarne (p. 505), when better sailing weather would favour coastal raids."
Alcuin, a Northumbrian scholar in Charlemagne's court at the time, wrote: "Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race ... The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets." During the attack many of the monks were killed, or captured and enslaved.
Biographer Peter Ackroyd suggests: "The monasteries of Lindisfarne and Jarrow were not attacked at random; they were chosen as examples of revenge. The onslaught of the Christian Charlemagne on the ‘pagans’ of the north had led to the extirpation of their shrines and sanctuaries. The great king had cut down Jôrmunr, the holy tree of the Norse people. What better form of retaliation than to lay waste the foundations devoted to the Christian God? The Christian missionaries to Norway had in fact set out from Lindisfarne."Peter Ackroyd Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors, ch 5 (The History of England, vol 1) Macmillan, 2011. However, the raid on Lindisfarne took place decades after Charlemagne’s campaigns against the Saxons. Neither the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle nor any surviving Norse document ascribes a motivation to the raid on the monastery.
As the English population became more settled, they seemed to have abandoned seafaring. Many monasteries were established on islands, peninsulas, river mouths and cliffs, as isolated communities were less susceptible to interference and the politics of the heartland. These preliminary raids, despite their brutal nature, were not followed up. The main body of the raiders passed north around Scotland. The 9th-century invasions came not from Norway, but from the Danes from around the entrance to the Baltic. The first Danish raids into England were in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent during 835 and from there their influence spread north. During this period religious art continued to flourish on Lindisfarne, and the Liber Vitae of Durham began in the abbey. By 866, the Danes were in York, and in 873 the Danish army was moving into Northumberland. With the collapse of the Northumbrian kingdom, the monks of Lindisfarne fled the island in 875 taking with them St Cuthbert's bones (which are now buried at Durham Cathedral), who during his life had been prior and bishop of Lindisfarne; his body was buried on the island in the year 698.
Prior to the 9th century, Lindisfarne Abbey had, in common with other such establishments, held large tracts of land which were managed directly or leased to farmers with a life interest only. Following the Danish occupation, land was increasingly owned by individuals, and could be bought, sold and inherited. Following the Battle of Corbridge in 914 Ragnald seized the land giving some to his followers Scula and Onlafbal.
Under Norman rule, by 1150 the island's parish church had also been fully rebuilt over part of the site of the pre-Norman abbey. The newly constructed chapel included a cenotaph (an empty tomb) marking the spot where Cuthbert's body was believed to have been buried. Although his body by then had been relocated in Durham Cathedral, the place of his former primary shrine on Lindisfarne was still considered by many to be sacred ground and continued to draw pilgrims. History of Lindisfarne Priory By english-heritage.org. Retrieved 2023-05-08. The pre-Norman island bishopric of Lindisfarne was not restored under Norman rule, perhaps because the newer and more centrally located bishopric of Durham was then better able to meet the church's administrative needs in the area.
As such, the island's restored but slightly smaller Benedictine monastery (sized as a priory under Norman rule) was then able to continue in relative peace under the new Norman monarchy and its successor for the next four centuries until its final dissolution in 1536 as a result of Henry VIII's dissolution of the English church's ties to Rome, and his subsequent closing of the monasteries.
Archaeologists led by DigVentures and the University of Durham have been conducting community excavations since 2016 outside the priory. A total of nine consecutive field seasons (including those planned for 2024) have unearthed numerous insights for the site. Artefacts of note recovered included a rare board game piece, copper-alloy rings and Anglo-Saxon coins from both Northumbria and Wessex. The discovery of a cemetery led to finding commemorative markers "unique to the 8th and 9th centuries". The group also found evidence of an early medieval building, "which seems to have been constructed on top of an even earlier industrial oven" which was used to make copper or glass.
In 1462, during the Wars of the Roses, Margaret of Anjou made an abortive attempt to seize the Northumbrian castles. Following a storm at sea 400 troops had to seek shelter on Holy Island, where they surrendered to the Yorkists.
In the 1860s a Dundee firm built on Lindisfarne, and lime was burnt on the island until at least the end of the 19th century. The kilns are among the most complex in Northumberland. Horses carried limestone, along the Holy Island Waggonway, from a quarry on the north side of the island to the lime kilns, where it was burned with coal transported from Dundee on the east coast of Scotland. There are still traces of the jetties by which the coal was imported and the lime exported close by at the foot of the crags. The remains of the waggonway between the quarries and the kilns makes for an easy walk.
At the peak of the limestone quarrying and processing operations on the island, over 100 men were employed by these operations. Crinoid columnals, a certain type of intricate fossil with a hole in the middle which is sometimes found in limestone, were separated from the quarried stone and then milled smooth into beads. The remaining quarried limestone material would then be processed into lime. These more valuable beads would then be threaded onto necklaces and rosaries and exported from the island. The beads became known as St Cuthbert's beads. Site Diary: The Story of St Cuthbert’s Bead DigVentures Ltd. 17 June 2016. Retrieved 2023-05-20.
The large-scale quarrying in the 19th century had a devastating effect on the limestone caves, but eight sea caves remain at Coves Haven. Workings on the lime kilns stopped by the start of the 20th century. The lime kilns on Lindisfarne are among the few being actively preserved in Northumberland.
Holy Island Golf Club was founded in 1907 but closed in the 1960s.
Holy Island was considered part of the Islandshire unit along with several mainland parishes. This came under the jurisdiction of the County Palatine of Durham until the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.
Lindisfarne was mainly a fishing community for many years, with farming and the production of lime also of some importance.
Lindisfarne is well known for mead. When monks inhabited the island, it was thought that if the soul was in God's keeping, the body must be fortified with Lindisfarne mead. Lindisfarne Mead is produced at St Aidan's Winery, and sold widely. The mead recipe remains a secret of the family which produces it.
It is possible to see old wooden boats turned upside down on the land, used as sheds. It is possible that this type of settlement was used by seafaring Vikings that exploited their ships as protection while away from home. These upturned boats near the foreshore provided the inspiration for Spanish architect Enric Miralles' Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh.
After the Reformation the church slipped into disrepair until the restoration of 1860. The church is built of coloured sandstone which has had the Victorian era plaster removed from it. The north aisle is known as the "fishermen's aisle" and houses the altar of St. Peter. The south aisle used to hold the altar of St. Margaret of Scotland, but now houses the organ.
The church is a Grade I listed building number 1042304, listed as part of the whole priory. The church forms most of the earliest part of the site and is a scheduled ancient monument number 1011650. The Church of St Mary the Virgin has daily services of worship.
The islet is a short distance from Holy Island.MAGiC MaP – Notes
It is possible to walk across sand and rocks to the islet when tidal conditions allow.
There are the remains of a medieval chapel, designated as a scheduled monument:
The name " Hobthrush" relates to Hob (folklore) – the similarly named " Hob-trush" is also found in North Yorkshire. It is possible that the name was introduced by Navvy while working on Holy Island.
After Henry VIII suppressed the priory, his troops used the remains as a naval store. In 1542 Henry VIII ordered the Earl of Rutland to fortify the site against possible Scottish invasion. Sir John Harington and the Master Mason of Berwick started to plan to build two earth bulwarks, although Rutland advised the use of stone from the priory.Joseph Bain, Hamilton Papers, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1890), p. 179. In September 1544 a Scottish fleet led by John Barton in the Mary Willoughby threatened the English coast. It was thought the Scottish ships might try to burn Lindisfarne, so orders were given to repair the decayed bulwark or blockhouse at Holy Island.Joseph Bain, Hamilton Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1892), pp. 463, 471–76.
By December 1547, Ralph Cleisbye, Captain of the fort, had guns including a wheel-mounted demi-culverin, two brass sakers, a falcon, and another fixed demi-culverin. However, Beblowe Crag itself was not fortified until 1549 and Sir Richard Lee saw only a decayed platform and turf rampart there in 1565. Elizabeth I then had work carried out on the fort, strengthening it and providing gun platforms for the developments in artillery technology. When James VI and I came to power in England, he combined the Scottish and English thrones, and the need for the castle declined. At that time the castle was still garrisoned from Berwick and protected the small Lindisfarne Harbour.
During the Jacobite rising of 1715 the Earl of Mar (later commander of the Jacobite army) planned for a Franco-Spanish invasion of North-East England to link up with indigenous Jacobites and the Scottish army marching south. Holy Island was regarded by Mar as the ideal place for a landing. The following day, however, he decided on a more southerly landing.
Lindisfarne was close to Bamburgh which at that time was owned by Thomas Forster who was a committed Jacobite. The Jacobites wanted to secure the castle on Holy Island so as "to give signals to the ships from which they expected succours from abroad". The castle was sealed but only held by around six men. The brigantine Mary of the Tyne, ex France was anchored in the bay. The master, Lancelot Errington, went ashore on 10 October 1715 to ask Samuel Phillipson, the castle's Master Gunner who also served as the unit's barber, for a shave. The men knew each other and so this seemed entirely innocent. Errington established that only two soldiers (Phillipson and Farggison) and Phillipson's wife were actually in the castle, the rest of the garrison being off duty. Errington returned with his nephew later in the day claiming to have lost the key to his watch then pulled a pistol on Phillipson and ejected the three people. Forster was expected to send reinforcements to the castle but never did.
The following day Colonel Laton with a hundred troops arrived from Berwick and was joined by 50 of the islanders in retaking the castle. The Erringtons fled, were caught and imprisoned in the tollbooth at Berwick but tunnelled their way out and escaped back to Bamburgh. On 14 October two French ships signalled to the castle, but on receiving no reply withdrew.
The castle was refurbished in the Arts and Crafts style by Sir Edwin Lutyens for the editor of Country Life, Edward Hudson. Lutyens also designed the Holy Island War Memorial on the Heugh.
One of the most celebrated gardeners of modern times, Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932), laid out a small walled garden just north of the castle in 1911. The castle, garden and nearby lime kilns are in the care of the National Trust and open to visitors.
Guile Point East and Guile Point West are two stone obelisks which function as Leading lights, guiding vessels approaching the harbour from the east. The beacons, which stand on a small tidal island on the other side of the channel, were established in 1826 by Newcastle-upon-Tyne Trinity House (in whose ownership they remain). When aligned, they indicated the safe channel over a submerged bar. Since the early 1990s, a sector light has been fixed about one-third of the way up on the Guile Point East beacon.
The Heugh Hill Light is a metal framework tower with a black triangular day mark, situated on Heugh Hill (a ridge on the south edge of Lindisfarne). Prior to its installation, a wooden beacon with a triangle topmark had stood on the centre of Heugh Hill for many decades. When aligned with the church belfry (on a bearing of 310°), it indicated that the bar had been cleared and provided a line of approach into the harbour.
Nearby on Heugh Hill is a former coastguard station (recently refurbished and opened to the public as a viewing platform). An adjacent ruin is known as the Lantern Chapel; its origin is unknown, but the name may indicate an earlier navigation light on this site.
On the other side of the island, the Emmanuel Head daymark provides a visual navigational fix during daylight hours. It is a white brick pyramid, standing high, on Emmanuel Head at the north-eastern point of Lindisfarne. Built in 1810, it is said to be Britain's earliest purpose-built daymark.
The island was featured on the television programme Seven Natural Wonders as one of the wonders of the north. The Lindisfarne Gospels have also featured on television among the Treasures of Britain. It also features in an ITV Tyne Tees programme Diary of an Island which started on 19 April 2007 and on a DVD of the same name.
The opening track "793 (Slaget om Lindisfarne)" on Norwegian metal band Enslaved's 1997 album Eld deals with the 793 raid from the Viking invaders' perspective.
The Viking raid appears in season one of the television series Vikings. A dramatised version of the first Viking raid on the island appears in the final episode of season 3 of the comedy series Norsemen.
It is also mentioned as background in Anne Perry's novel A Question of Betrayal (2020).
The Viking raid appeared in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio story Escape from Holy Island (2024), starring the Sixth Doctor and his companion Peri Brown.
Lindisfarne was the location for filming of director Roman Polanski's 1966 comedy thriller Cul-de-sac (starring Donald Pleasence, Françoise Dorléac, Lionel Stander and Jack MacGowran).
Danny Boyle's film 28 Years Later (2025) is set on Lindisfarne, although the aerial views of the island were CGI.
The island was the setting for season 1 episode 5 (2012) of Wolfblood, a supernatural teen drama from Children's BBC.
Lindisfarne Castle
Lindisfarne Castle was built in 1550, around the time that Lindisfarne Priory went out of use, and stones from the priory were used as building material. It is very small by the usual standards, and was more of a fort. The castle sits on the highest point of the island, a whinstone hill called Beblowe.
Green Shiel
This monument on the north coast includes a farmstead dated to the early medieval period. The stone-built foundations of five rectangular buildings have been uncovered by excavation within the dune system. The settlement at Green Shiel is a rare example of an early medieval farmstead in Northumberland. There are no other known examples of stone-built farmsteads of this period in the region, and as such it is of particular importance. The settlement has been dated to the 9th century.
Navigational markers
The Corporation of Trinity House maintains three beacons on or near the island, to guide vessels entering Holy Island Harbour: one is on Heugh Hill, the other two at Guile Point. Two of the three have navigation lights attached (and Trinity House classes them as 'lighthouses'). Until 1 November 1995 all three were operated by Newcastle-upon-Tyne Trinity House (a separate corporation, which formerly had responsibility for navigation marks along the coast from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Whitby), but on that day responsibility for marking the approach to the harbour was assumed by the London-based Corporation.
Community Trust Fund/Holy Island Partnership
In response to the perceived lack of affordable housing on the isle of Lindisfarne, in 1996 a group of islanders established a charitable foundation known as the Holy Island of Lindisfarne Community Development Trust. They built a visitor centre on the island using the profits from sales. In addition, 11 community houses were built and are rented out to community members who want to continue to live on the island. The trust is also responsible for management of the inner harbour. The Holy Island Partnership was formed in 2009 by members of the community as well as organisations and groups operating on the island.
Tourism
Tourism grew steadily throughout the 20th century, and the isle of Lindisfarne is now a popular destination for visitors. Those tourists staying on the island while it is cut off by the tide experience the island in a quieter state, as most day trippers leave before the tide rises. At low tide it is possible to walk across the sands following an ancient route known as the Pilgrims' Way (see the note about safety, above). This route is marked with posts and has refuge boxes for stranded walkers, just as the road has a refuge box for those who have left their crossing too late. The isle of Lindisfarne is surrounded by the Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve which attracts bird-watchers to the tidal island. The island's prominent position and varied habitat make it particularly attractive to tired avian migrants, and 330 bird species had been recorded on the island.
Media
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC North East and Cumbria and ITV Tyne Tees. Television signals are received from Chatton transmitting station. Local radio stations are BBC Radio Newcastle, Capital North East, Heart North East, Smooth North East, Hits Radio North East, Greatest Hits Radio and Holy Island Radio, a community based station. The island is served by the local newspaper, Northumberland Gazette.
Culture
J. M. W. Turner, Thomas Girtin and Charles Rennie Mackintosh all painted on Holy Island.
Music
The English folk-rock band Lindisfarne takes its name from the island. The English musician James Blake wrote two electronica songs named after Lindisfarne, both appearing on his 2011 album. The rock band Iona had a song called Lindisfarne on their 1996 album Journey into the Morn.
In popular fiction
Most of LJ Ross's crime novel Holy Island (2015) is set on Lindisfarne. Much of Ann Cleeves' mystery novel The Rising Tide is also located here and was filmed on the island for the TV series Vera based on the lead character in Cleeves' novels, DCI Vera Stanhope as played by Brenda Blethyn.
Arms
Notes
Citations
(1976). 9780715371855, David & Charles. ISBN 9780715371855
Further reading
External links
Categories: Anglo-norse England, History Of Northumberland, Ramsar Sites In England, Sites Of Special Scientific Interest In Northumberland, Ports And Harbours Of Northumberland, Celtic Christianity, Populated Coastal Places In Northumberland, Tidal Islands Of England, Islands Of Northumberland, Monasteries Dissolved Under The English Reformation, Lime Kilns In The United Kingdom, Civil Parishes In Northumberland, Northumberland Places With Etymologically Brittonic Names
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