12 September 2023 - The Holy Island of Lindisfarne
Miles driven today = 0
Total Miles to date = 396
We weren't just lucky with the weather once again today, the tides were also in our favour. Our friend Cheryl, who was in these parts earlier in the year, tipped us off that if possible it's best to arrive on the Holy Island while the tide is rising so that you can spend as much time as you like over the high tide period before leaving later in the day as it ebbed. A quick Google revealed that the Causeway would be underwater between 12:40 and 17:20 today so we pedalled aross before 11 in order to give ourselves most of the day to explore.
Our first stop was at the Priory Museum where there were lots of informative exhibits giving insight into the history of the Priory. These items were all found during excavations and date from between the 7th and 11th Centuries.
These pieces of stone crosses all date from a similar vintage.
These are known as St Cuthbert's Beads or Cuddy Beads. They are actually made from the 300 million year old fossilised stems of Sea Lilies which are often found on the island.
We had to skirt around the Parish Church of St Mary The Virgin as there was a funeral in progress but plenty of time to come back for a look around later.
On entering the Priory grounds we were greeted by this statue of St Cuthbert who was Bishop of Lindisfarne in the 7th Century. When he died in 687 he was buried within the Priory but subsequently when Lindisfarne was attacked by Viking invaders his remains were moved to Durham Cathedral for safekeeping.
Most of the Priory buildings we see today were constructed during the 12th to 14th Centuries.
Lindisfarne was under the diocese of Durham and the Priory Church was built to resemble the Cathedral at Durham, albeit on a much smaller scale.
The Church's main tower collapsed in the late 18th Century but miraculously a single rib of the crossing vault survived. This has become known as the "Rainbow Arch".
Beyond the Priory we found a track leading down to the beach. We tucked into our sandwiches whilst sat on a wall outside the old lifeboat shed and when we finished we popped inside to have a look at the exhibits detailing the boats which had been housed here and the heroic feats of the men who took them to sea.
We clambered up onto a natural rock formation called the Heugh, which protects the Priory and the village from the worst of the elements. From up here we could see St Cuthbert's Isle, where the Saint is said to have sought solitude. Beyond and to the right of that you can see a huge gathering of Grey Seals on a sandbank. Their mournful howling was clearly audible from the beach and initially we couldn't for the lives of us work out where it was coming from. Above the seals and over on the mainland you can just about make out the campsite where we are staying for our second night tonight.
On top of The Heugh is a watchtower which has 360 degree views and lots of information on the wildlife you can see on the Island.
Bikes retrieved we pedalled on to the harbour where we found several boat hulls which had been cut in half, turned upside down and are now used as storage huts.
On to the Castle, which was built in the 1570s to protect the border from Scottish raids. It was subsequently used as a Coastgaurd Station before being sold into private ownership.
In 1902 the derelict Castle was bought by Edward Hudson, who was the founder of Countrylife Magazine. He employed the famous architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to transform the Castle into a fabulous holiday home and the majority of the interior decor reflects how the rooms would have looked at this time.
Hudson's muse, and briefly his fiancee, was Madame Guilhermina Suggia, a celebrated cellist. I assume we are to believe that this is supposed to have been her bed chamber.
In one of the upper rooms is an audio piece called "Song (after Nature)". I sat in front of this array of speakers for a while but nothing happened!
The view from the ramparts looking back across the harbour to the Priory and the village.
The stoney beach beyond the Castle. From this point you can follow several miles of Nature Trail leading on past Emmanuel Head, which you can see in the distance.
Lutyens was a good friend of the famous garden designer Gertrude Jeykll and he invited her to create a small walled garden close to the Castle at the time he was redeveloping it.
Back in the village we were now able to access St Mary's.
As well as the historical interest going back more 1400 years to the time of the Lindisfarne Gospels, which now reside in the British Library, the Church has this fantastic sculpture of monks carrrying the coffin of St Cuthbert.
At St Aidan's Winery we tried 5 different varieties of mead. I'm usually quite partial to a drop of the stuff but I'm disappointed to have to say that none of them impressed me sufficiently to take a bottle home with us.
So with a little time to kill before we could pedal back to the van without getting our feet wet we sat outside the Manor House Hotel and quaffed a couple of local ales.
Officially we weren't supposed to be able to get back across the Causeway until 5:20pm but we spotted last night from the campsite that cars were driving across a good 45 minutes before they were supposed to be able to so we headed for home and were already back at the van and washing the salt off the bikes before our expected departure time.
Tomorrow we have decided that it is time that we started making our way back South. We'll be sad to leave the coast but there's plenty of Northumberland to see inland as well. We are heading initially for Kielder and I really have no idea whether we will have sufficient data signal to post an update tomorrow. So here's a picture of tonight's Spanish Omelette to keep you going just in case!
Comments
Post a Comment