Elsdon’s Horses’ Heads (NY936933)

© Copyright Mike Quinn and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

In a cabinet in St.Cuthbert’s Church, Elsdon, can be found the skulls of three horses. The items were found in the building’s stump of a spire during restoration work in 1877 – in a specially made, sealed chamber – and no one has been able to satisfactorily explain the bizarre discovery.

It has been suggested that it may hark back to the ancient pagan ritual of sacrificing a horse, which was seen as a sanctifying action – perhaps originally during the construction of an early church on the spot. But as the church has been renovated several times over the centuries this would mean the survival of a very old tradition over a prolonged period. Elsdon, though, was a stopping off point for the body of St.Cuthbert on its wanderings in the late 9^th century, so there may well be something in this story – namely, that the placing of the skulls was a sort of foundation sacrifice, which was then copied over the ages.

Horse’s skulls are surprisingly common finds in buildings of all sorts, not just churches, along with items such as shoes and dried cats. Reasons for such deposits are usually connected with fending off ill fortune or evil spirits. As for the placing of skulls in a bell tower or spire it could also be a sort of reinforcement of the original purpose of the church bells themselves, being to frighten away evil spirits. It has even been suggested that the skulls were placed where they were – directly over the bell – to enhance acoustics. So there does seem to be a sort of explanation for the Elsdon oddity…

Whatever the true story behind the horse skulls of Elsdon, we can be sure that their origins stretch back a long, long time.

St.Cuthbert’s Church, Bellingham (NY838832)

© Copyright wfmillar and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

Bellingham, now a parish in its own right, was once an ancient chapelry of ‘The Great Parish’ of Simonburn (see here). It has therefore had its own place of worship, St.Cuthbert’s Church, for a very long time indeed, with roots going back to Dark Age Northumbria. And the old church is, for many reasons, a very interesting place…

(1) Firstly, of course, on account of its very name, the spot is supposed to have been one of the resting places for St. Cuthbert’s body and the fleeing monks of Lindisfarne in the 9^th century;

(2) Secondly, there is the church’s strange construction. Possibly uniquely in England, Bellingham has a heavy vaulted stone roof. Externally, this is evidenced by the use of massive stone slabs as slates, and internally by a hefty barrel-like construction. It wasn’t always like this, though. For centuries it had a standard timber roof, but this was replaced with the present effort in the early 17^th century when the locals tired of its repeated torching by those pesky Scots (see point 4 for one such instance);

(3) Then, in the churchyard, you will find an odd-shaped, pillow-like tombstone labelled ‘The Lang Pack.’ This is supposedly the final resting place of the victim of an infamous tale of Northumbrian folklore, when a man hiding in a ‘Lang (Long) Pack’ was killed by a manservant of nearby Lee Hall whilst trying to gain illegal entry to the same in 1723. No one quite knows what to make of either the story or the grave-marker;

(4) Next there is the display case inside the church containing cannon balls. The label tells us that they were found in the roof when the stone slabs were relaid in 1861 – and were probably launched into their location during the 1597 artillery raid by the Duke of Buccleuch.

Interesting place, then.

It would be remiss of me not to bring to your attention Northernvicar’sblog entry on the topic, which has a few more pictures for your visual consumption.

The Flag of County Durham

County Durham’s official flag is something of an oddity, having been designed and adopted in the very recent past – 2013, in fact – being the last of England’s northern counties to take up the flag-waving mantle. As you can see, it shows the outline of St.Cuthbert’s Cross counter-changed horizontally between the county colours of blue and yellow (or gold, if you prefer!).

Prior to this, the ‘unofficial’ flag looked like this…

…being the county council’s official effort, and in use from the 1970s county boundaries reshuffle. However, in the summer of 2013, campaigner Andy Strangeway launched an online competition for a new design – and the winner was the splendid effort at the top of this piece. It was put together by twins Katie and Holly Moffatt and their father James from Chilton, near Ferryhill, who beat off the competition by public vote. And by the end of November 2013 the flag was flying proudly over Durham Cathedral.

Cuthbert’s Foster Mum (NU010347)

A little off the B6525 to the NE of Doddington lies the hamlet of Wrangham. One may not immediately associate this rural backwater – now largely a collection of farm outbuildings – with anything too drastic, history-wise, but this lonely spot has a strong link with one of our most famous individuals.

St.Cuthbert needs little in the way of introduction to anyone with even the slightest interest in the history of our region, but biographical detail of his early life is scanty. Born in the Scottish Borders, he is believed to have come from a noble family – if for no other reason than he was raised by a foster mother (a common upbringing for such offspring). Amazingly, we know the woman’s name, Kenswith, and that she lived at a place called Hruringaham – reckoned to be the Wrangham in question.

At age eight, it seems, he was placed in her care, and became a shepherd boy in the surrounding hills. He was something of a gymnast, he and his friends impressing one another with feats of agility and stamina in their spare time. Then, aged 17, he began his religious training and moved away.

He briefly saw military service with the early Northumbrian armies before settling down to his well-known career path – initially via the newly-established monastery at Melrose. As his responsibilities and reputation grew we are told that he still found time to visit Kenswith ‘often’ from ‘the monastery’ – though we do not know which monastery! There used to be a Wrangham near Smailholm in the Borders quite near to Melrose, but the Northumberland option seems to be favoured by most historians.

And, besides, there is a ‘Cuddy’s Well’ and a ‘Cuddy’s Cave’ nearby, which seems to clinch it for the North-East, thank you very much!

Mysteries of the Hurl Stone (NU039247)

 © Copyright Russel Wills and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

In the middle of a farmer’s field a couple of miles to the SW of Chillingham stands the Hurl Stone, a ten-foot high rough-hewn obelisk of unknown origin yet steeped in myth and legend. Hard facts are difficult to come by, but who needs ‘em?

First of all there is its name. Some speculate that it is derived from the ‘Earl’s Stone’ – though the identity of the gentleman in question is not known. It may have been an ancient standing stone (or cross) at one point, possibly relocated to its present spot by someone or other. Everyone’s  favourite theory, though, is that it was literally ‘hurled’ there by the Devil himself, who, when perched high upon the Cheviot, saw pesky St.Cuthbert going about his pious wanderings in the distance and threw the stone at him in anger.

The Hurl Stone is supposed to be the haunt of fairies, too. An underground passage some sixteen miles in length is supposed to pass under the stone (linking Cateran Hole in the east to Henhole in the west), which, when it was once explored in times of old, revealed evidence of underground fairy-like activity immediately beneath the stone. The adventurers didn’t hang around long enough to investigate further and scarpered sharp-ish.

Sorry to disappoint, but chances are that the Hurl Stone was once a medieval Christian cross which lost its top and was then recycled as a folly (of sorts) by someone with nothing better to do. Some attribute the act to a Mr Jobson, a local farmer, and that a bolt of lightning accounted for the missing couple of foot or so. 

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Chester-le-Street’s Missing Gold (NZ277514)

In 1042, Durham needed a new bishop. By whatever means (thanks, supposedly, to the influence of the mighty Earl Godwin), a monk from Peterborough by the name of Egelric landed the job. So up he came to the North-East and began what he must have considered something of a plum job.

Durham had by that time been the home of the mortal remains of St Cuthbert for around half a century. The saint’s previous ‘home’ had been Chester-le-Street, where he had lain during 883-995AD. Since his removal, the little town had lost a good deal of it’s glamour, but Egelric decided to give it a bit of a facelift with the construction of a brand new stone church to replace the battered old wooden affair that had housed Cuthbert’s bits and pieces.

Now this is all supposed to have happened towards the end of the bishop’s reign, around 1054-56. The story goes that during excavational work for the new edifice a hoard of gold was found, the workmen having stumbled upon the treasury of the old Roman garrison. Reports vary slightly as to what exactly happened next, but it would appear that Bishop Egelric exercised what you might call his ‘executive right’ and appropriated the gold for himself and did a runner back to Peterborough.

More kindly reports have him ‘retiring’ the bishopric of Durham in 1056 and assuming some prominent post at Peterborough, where, suitably endowed with a mysterious fortune, he set about rebuilding many of the roads and pathways of the Fens. The new church at Chester-le-Street was built, however, though presumably the money had already been put aside for this task.

According to Arthur Mee’s Durham (1953), the dubious cleric ended up being thrown in the Tower of London for his misdeeds several years later by William the Conqueror.

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Pity Me (NZ265455)

What an odd-sounding place-name! And we can’t sweep past this little outpost to the north of Durham City without having a bash at its derivation. Truth is, no-one seems to have the definitive answer, no matter what they say. Take your pick…

Theory No.1 – it is derived from the French petite mer (or the Norman petit mere), meaning ‘little sea’ (perhaps meant as ironic, given the arid nature of the land thereabouts);

Theory No.2 – it is a corruption of ‘petty mere’ (small lake)

Theory No.3 – it is a corruption of ‘peaty mere’ (peaty lake);

Theory No.4 – it is a corruption of ‘pithead mere’ (a boggy area into which the water from pithead pumps was dumped);

Theory No.5 – it is a corruption of ‘pitty mea’, meaning a pitted/uneven meadow;

Theory No.6 – it is from old British/Celtic words meaning ‘field of graves’ (Beddan Maes);

Theory No.7 – “a whimsical name bestowed in the nineteenth century on a place considered desolate, exposed or difficult to cultivate” (Mills, A. D., The Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names);

Theory No.8 – The monks carrying the coffin of Cuthbert dropped it near this spot – the saint imploring them to take pity on him and resume their task with more care;

Theory No.9 – during a flight from a Viking raid, a group of monks stopped there and sang the 51^st Psalm, the Latin version of which includes the words Miserere mei, Deus, which can be delivered in English as “Pity me, O God”.

Dare I say, there may be more!

St.Cuthbert’s Final Resting Place? (NZ273421)

Via Wikipedia (public domain)

As we all know, the mortal remains of St.Cuthbert lie in Durham Cathedral, right? Well, probably. The picture above tells us the official story, but a legend has persisted for centuries that the great saint’s bones actually rest elsewhere – and that the secret location has been passed down to a select handful of clerics still living today.

The history of St.Cuthbert’s remains and all the various relics that went with him is a lengthy one. To cut this very long story down to a manageable size, after his death in 687AD he was shipped from pillar to post for several centuries until he was finally laid to permanent rest within the walls of the newly-built cathedral around the turn of the twelfth century.

He has been disturbed at least thrice since. Once in 1541 when the Dissolution targeted the city, then in 1827 and 1899. The sum of the various investigations carried out at these times seemed to confirm the traditional story of the various shenanigans surrounding his post-mortem adventures – yet a curious rumour persists. Was, in fact, the body switched at some point, and the real remains hidden elsewhere?

The story goes that when Henry VIII and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell turned their eyes to Durham Cathedral in the dying days of the Dissolution, the monks panicked and substituted Cuthbert’s remains for some other nobody – probably a quick body switch during an overnight stay in the desecration process. As it happens, the ‘sacred remains’ – whether genuine or not – were reburied in due course, and remain where you will find them today, duly marked by a dirty big tombstone. Another version has Cuthbert’s genuine remains being desecrated, re-buried, then subsequently switched during 1542-58 for fear the royal commissioners should return for another poke at the same.

If the true remains were ever secreted away – to another spot in the cathedral, or elsewhere – nobody knows. Well, apart from a long, thin line of trusted clerics through which the secret has passed these past 450 years. 

Garmondsway & the King (NZ342348)

On the face of it, there doesn’t appear to have ever been very much in the way of activity in and around Garmondsway. The few farm- and home-steads which remains in the landscape a couple of miles west of Trimdon don’t appear to have seen much action over the centuries.

A railway line once helped serve the old limestone quarry to the north, the empty expanse of Garmondsway Moor lies to the south and – going way back – an old Roman road (now the A177) skirted the area a little to the west.

But look on the modern-day map and you’ll see the site of the old abandoned medieval village marked at NZ342348. Nothing much to look at now, maybe, but at one time this tiny settlement was important enough to receive mention in the history books as having been visited by King Canute.

For, in 1027, shortly after a slightly more high-profile pilgrimage to Rome, England’s then monarch decided to set out on a local mini-pilgrimage to the shrine of St.Cuthbert at Durham. On the way, the royal retinue passed through Garmondsway; and it was here – at a distance of some 5 or 6 miles from their destination – that they decided to complete the remainder of the trip barefoot, as pilgrims are prone to do. Canute is also rumoured to have shaved his hair and beard clean off for the occasion.

Warden Law & the Legend of the Dun Cow (NZ370507)

 

[thanks to Rebecca Kennison at http://en.wikipedia.org]

The story of the Dun Cow, as depicted in the above eighteenth-century panel on the north facade of Durham Cathedral, supposedly explains how the remains of St.Cuthbert came to find their way to the city of Durham – an event which led, in turn, of course, to the construction of the mighty Durham Cathedral.

Legend has it that in around 995AD the monks of Lindisfarne, whilst traversing the North-East with the saint’s holy remains in tow, came to rest upon Warden Law, a prominence a little to the north-east of Houghton-le-Spring.  On attempting to resume their journey they couldn’t move the cart upon which the coffin was being carried, and resorted to prayer in order seek divine guidance.  Bishop Aldhun (or the monk Eadmer – accounts vary) then had a vision in which he was told to take St.Cuthbert’s remains to ‘Dunholme’, but nobody knew where that was.

The story goes that the monks then overheard a passing milkmaid asking a local woman if she had seen her wandering dun (greyish-brown) cow.  The local was heard to have said that she thought she’d seen it walking towards Dunholme, whereupon the maid made her way westward.  The monks then quickly gathered themselves and returned to the coffin with the intention of following the young girl, whereupon they found that, miraculously, the cart now moved freely.

And so the party moved happily down the road, bound for the saint’s final resting place.

Mind you, it’s not the only hill that claims the rights to the story!

Coquet Island (NU294045)

 

This small island, one mile east of Amble off the Northumberland coast, has an eventful history for such a tiny wee place. It is now an RSPB reserve, of course, and a well-protected one at that, with no members of the general public permitted to land on its rocky shores. Even the lighthouse is now fully automated.

 

Not that it has ever been ‘populated’ to any great extent, you understand; hermits are those most closely associated with its barren 15 acres or so. St.Cuthbert spent a little time there, famously granting an interview to Elfed, Abbess of Whitby and sister of King Ecgfrith, during which he was effectively offered the bishopric of Lindisfarne. But the island is most closely tied to the solitary life of one St.Henry of Coquet.

 

Henry came to Coquet Island in the early 12th century, having been guided by a vision to make good his escape from an arranged marriage in his native Denmark and dedicate his life to a one in lonely praise of God. After a quick word with the powers-that-be at Tynemouth Priory, he ensconced himself on the rocky outpost and set about his calling. He lived a severely austere existence, surviving on only three small meals a week and gave up speaking for several years. His extreme mode of living brought much criticism from the monk formally in charge of the island – a manifestation of his envy, presumably, due to what can only be described as the ‘high standards’ of his vows of poverty – and cries aplenty from his relatives back in Denmark to return to the bosom of his family and a hermitage much nearer to home. Being afflicted by a “loathsome affection” to his knee, however, he insisted upon staying put.

 

He was credited with ‘second sight’, of course, as most of his type were. He saw lots of things others couldn’t, made premonitions, magicked up miracles, and was considered something of a wiseman. You know, the usual sort of thing. In early 1127, though, his ulcerated knee finally sent him on his way to the other side, with his remains being buried at Tynemouth Priory.