The Ham Nomads

10 Aug 2014. <GB-ENG> Lindisfarne; Rudchester, Northum —

We left Etal Castle at about 9.50, and were on our way towards Newcastle. We were driving east on the B6353, planning to turn south on the A1, when Warren realised that turning north and going only about 4 miles would take us to the road out to Lindisfarne Island. This island is accessible by road causeway when the tide is low, so we decided to try our luck — and we found that the tide would give us about 3 hours on the island. Not enough to do it justice, true, but better than nothing!

The Causeway

St Cuthbert Statue

Lindisfarne was founded by the Irish monk St Aidan in AD635, and was the home of St Cuthbert, the famous hermit, in the late 7th century. He spent most of his time here on St Cuthbert's Island, a small islet off Lindisfarne (again, accessible at low tide).

St Cuthbert's Island

Lindisfarne resonates with Warren's studies as, when he was studying Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon, aka Anglisc), one of the sources was the Lindisfarne Gospels, created by the monks on Lindisfarne in the early 700s, and given an interlinear gloss in Old English by Aldred (the provost at Chester-le-Street) in the 10th century. The book is a work of art, on a par with the Book of Kells (from Iona, now in Dublin), but also an invaluable resource for the student of Old English.

Lindisfarne was also ravaged by the Vikings in AD793 — another resonance with Warren's studies, this time of Old Norse!

The ruins now visible on the island are of a priory constructed in the 12th and 13th centuries by the Benedictine monks who had taken over the site by then. There is nothing to be seen of the earlier wooden Anglo-Saxon structure, but the place still has a wonderful air of calm. The well is within the nave of the newer priory's church, a sign that the earlier Saxon structure was offset a little to the south of the later structure. St Cuthbert was supposedly buried where the apse of the more recent church stands, but no-one really knows. His remains were removed from here and taken to Durham to be interred in the cathedral there in 1104.

We wandered the old priory, and then went down to the harbour, looking out over the castle that commands it, and at the old inverted boats that have been converted for storage, before the rising tide called an end to our time here.

We then drove towards Hadrian's Wall, and found a layby to park very near the Hadrian's Wall Path that runs the length of the wall. Turns out that we were parked on a Military Road that bisects the site of an old Roman fort, Vindobala, that was occupied by the Romans between about 110 and 410 AD. The remains of Hurricane Bertha buffeted us the whole night through, but we were cosy in the van.

The Van parked at Vindobala

Distance driven — today, 96 miles ( 154 km ); to date, 5,614 miles ( 9,035 km )