Norham and North Durham (NT899473)

Anyone who knows anything about the ancient history of Northumbria will be aware of the region’s strong links with early Christianity. Aidan, Cuthbert and Bede dominate the annals of our history from the former’s arrival here as a missionary in 635AD to the latter’s death exactly a century later. And the village we now know as Norham on the very edge of England overlooking the River Tweed played an important role in those formative years.

These days, of course, the castle is the great symbol of Norham’s place in history, but this fine structure didn’t appear in its earliest form until the 1120s. Unlike most other settlements in the North-East, the village had already enjoyed an eventful and quite well documented history up until this point, mainly due to its situate.

Skipping conveniently over its very earliest days, it came to prominence most notably at the dawn of Northumbria’s period of Dark Age dominance in the 630sAD. When King Oswald won the crown of the northern kingdom in 634 he invited the Celtic monks of Iona to establish Christianity in the region – and it was, of course, Aidan who made this happen. He was sent over from the little Scottish island in 635 and, by passing over the Tweed and through Norham en route, he first brought the village into the sightlines of the religious community.

Norham was then called Ubbanford (‘upper ford’), and though Lindisfarne soon became religious HQ, it has been suggested that Norham enjoyed a brief period of superiority beforehand. Even in later years it remained a regular monkish stopping-off point on their journeys to and from Iona. A grant of land was, in fact, made to create a monastery at Norham as early as 655.

The village’s religious links were reinforced during the ninth century when on at least one (and probably two) occasions, the remains of St.Cuthbert were moved there to keep them safe from Viking raids. By the mid eleventh century Ubbanford had become Norham, and was essentially the capital of the County Palatine of Durham’s lands in North Northumberland – or North Durham, as it was for centuries known. So, yes, Norham (or Norhamshire) and a good deal more of the northern reaches of Northumberland weren’t in Northumberland at all, really, from the medieval period to the Victorian era, but rather they were part of County Durham – a curious state of affairs brought on by the enduring religious heritage of these stretches of land. Amazingly, it wasn’t until 1844 that the common sense switch was made by handing North Durham to Northumberland. 

When the castle came along in the 1120s, it was a Bishop of Durham who commissioned it. Built to keep the incursions of the increasingly boisterous Scots at bay, it encouraged the development, in time, of the the village proper. Then another very different phase in Norham’s history began… as a military outpost.

But that’s another story.

A Chester-le-Street First (NZ277514)

As most aficionados of the history of Chester-le-Street are keen to relate, this famous old town in the heart of County Durham was the original long-term resting place on the English mainland of the mortal remains of the great St.Cuthbert … before they were whisked off to first Ripon, then eventually Durham for permanent burial. The famous saint lay in stately repose at Chester-le-Street for some 112 years during 883-995AD.

When they arrived, however, the travelling monks didn’t expect to stay long. They’d been on the run for seven years with Cuthbert’s coffin and treasures and fully expected to move on again soon enough. So though there was plenty of stone lying around from the days of the Romans, they decided to throw up a temporary wooden church and dedicated it to St.Mary & St.Cuthbert.

By and by, they decided to stay put for a few generations – so they turned their thoughts to other religious matters. Not least was the first ever translation of the (Lindisfarne) Gospels into what we may consider to be a form of English – a task completed between 947 and 968 by ‘Aldred the Scribe’ by way of the scribbling of notations in Old English alongside the original Latin text.

So quite a coup for Chester-le-Street: the site of the first English translation of the Gospels – or at least the earliest surviving copy. So next time you see a copy of the famous Lindisfarne Gospels look out for Aldred’s writing between the lines!

A bit fuzzy, but you get the idea

In case you’re wondering, a short while after the removal of Cuthbert’s remains in 995AD a permanent, stone church was built on the site of the wooden affair around 1056 – bits of which can still be found in the fabric of the present-day parish church. 

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St.Cuthbert’s Devils (NU218360)

As you will no doubt know, St.Cuthbert spent a good deal of his time as a hermit living on Inner Farne. As he was somewhat in demand for one reason or another, he must at times have felt like the hermit-in-the-hole in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when another interruption came his way. But before he settled down to his expected life of solitude it is said that he had to first banish certain ‘demons’ or ‘devils’ from the island so that he could get some peace. This he did, sending them packing to neighbouring Wideopens Island.

Long after Cuthbert had been carried off the island in a box and laid to rest, more recent inhabitants of Inner Farne reported catching sight of these creatures:

… Clad in cowls, and riding upon goats, black in complexion, short in stature, their countenances most hideous, their heads long – the appearance of the whole group horrible. Like soldiers they brandished in their hands lances, which they darted after in the fashion of war. At first the sight of the cross was sufficient to repel their attacks, but the only protection in the end was the circumvaliation of straws, signed with the cross, and fixed in the sands, around which the devils galloped for a while, and then retired, leaving the brethren to enjoy victory and repose.

Quite what the brethren were ‘on’ it is impossible to say. A little too much of the local mead, perhaps?

St.Cuthbert’s Cave (NU060352)

A famous local landmark, St.Cuthbert’s Cave is a large, natural sandstone feature 3½ miles west of Belford. It is not really a cave at all, but more of a rocky overhang – the sort of place where a couple of dozen ramblers could shelter from the rain without getting a splash on their cagoules.

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Indeed, for the walking enthusiasts of the region it is something of a must-have; like the summit of Cheviot or the Simonside Ridge. Reachable by any number of ways from almost any direction, it does, however, require a little more than pulling up in a car park and wandering across the tarmac. Belford, with its close proximity to the A1, provides as good a launch pad as any, with a pleasant eight-mile round trip on foot easily negotiated along the dotted lines of your trusty OS map.

Its claim to fame, of course, is that it is reputed to have been a resting place for the monks of Lindisfarne as they fled with the mortal remains of the revered saint from the Viking invaders in the late 870s. They wandered for several years until finding a home at Chester-le-Street – the saintly bits finding their way, eventually, to Durham, of course. Now the cave lies on the course of the aptly-named ‘St.Cuthbert’s Way’, a 62-mile footpath linking Melrose to Lindisfarne, so is never short of company. Not that it ever has, judging by the age of the graffiti etched into the rocks thereabouts.