This part of the trip was the reason I stayed in Alnwick when Bill left. I really wanted to visit the Holy Island. I had heard that it was an incredibly holy place where one felt the presence of the Divine strongly. Historically, it was the one of the most important seats of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England .
Lindisfarne is tricky to get to if you don't have a car. The reason is that twice a day, the island is cut off from the mainland by the water so you have to watch the tide chart to know when to come and go if you don't want to get stuck there over night. Going by bus takes some planning and acceptance of the fact that you might not get to stay as long as you'd have liked.
From the Alnwick tourist office, we learned that we had to be in Alnwick to catch the 505 bus by 8:00. That bus would drop us off at a stop on the side of the road at Beal where we would wait approximately fifty minutes for the 477 bus to Holy Island. The lady in the tourist office informed us that the Beal bus stop was in the middle of nowhere so we were not really looking forward to fifty minutes on the side of the road in the cold early morning. Fortunately, things were not as dismal as she had led us to believe because there was a convenience store right across the highway with hot coffee and bathrooms. The 477 bus picked us up at 9:36, and we arrived at Lindisfarne at 10:55. The driver told us to meet back a 13:05 so that gave us basically three hours.
The first thing we did was go to the Lindisfarne Museum. We thought that would be a good place to start because it gave the history of the Lindisfarne Priory as well as displaying archeological finds from the area. We spent about thirty minutes there and then split up. Janet and Michael had been to Lindisfarne before so they went to visit with some friends from the Northumbria Community who live there while Pam and I toured St. Mary's church, the remains of the priory, and the Scriptorium.
St. Mary's Church. The original church was built of wood by St. Aidan in 635 AD. It has been expanded twice (in the 12th and 13th centuries) and restored once in 1860. One part of the original Saxon church remains in the chancel arch. There is a large statue near the entrance of the Lindisfarne monks carrying St. Cuthbert's body. St. Cuthbert (634-687) was an Anglo-Saxon monk with the gift of spiritual healing. At the age of thirty, he moved to Lindisfarne to run the monastery. At forty, he felt called to live the life of a hermit so he moved to a nearby smaller island and built a hermitage. At fifty, he was asked by the church and King to give up the hermit life and become a traveling bishop. Near the end of his life, Cuthbert went back to his hermitage where he died peacefully. His body was then carried back to Lindisfarne for burial. Hence, the statue.
Lindisfarne Priory was founded in 634 by St. Aidan, who arrived from the monastery run by St. Columba in Iona, Scotland. The thriving priory rapidly became one of the most important centers of early Christianity in England. However, the priory had a roller coaster existence. It was abandoned due to Viking raids in 793, repopulated in 1069, and closed for good in 1536. Ruins are all that remain today, but archaeologists have been able to reconstruct what the building looked like. The only place I found a "floor plan" and artist's rendering of the buildings was in these linked school lesson plans. You have to scroll trhough the pages to find them, but they are there.
The statue of St. Cuthbert is within the priory walls. The statue of St. Aidan is on the grounds outside.
After leaving the priory, Pam and I made our way to the Scriptorium. We browsed, and of course, found ways to spend our money. I bought some prayer cards. Pam bought prayer cards and artwork. We both bought postcards to mail to people back home.
All that shopping made us hungry so we decided to eat some lunch, write our postcards, and then visit the post office before making our way back to the bus. We found a sandwich shop called The Stables whose entrance was a riot of flowers. It was such a pleasant day, we decided to sit outside and enjoy the flora on the patio. We both had sandwiches and enjoyed the sun and scenery while writing to our friends.
Pam and I finished out tour of the Holy Island at the post office, where I found out that the stamps that I had bought at the museum were no good for international mail. So the postmistress sold me additional stamps to put on the postcards - five additional stamps for each card! This created some stress for me because not only were we cutting the time close to get back to the bus and putting all those stamps on six different post cards was quite time consuming but also there was no room on the cards for five extra stamps. I stuck those stamps all over the place in any kind of empty spot there was. Would it surprise you to know that none of the recipients ever got their cards? Go figure.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I was somewhat disappointed in the Holy Island. Maybe at a different time of year, the feeling there is more holy, but in the middle of the summer, all it felt like to me was a tourist spot. There were people everywhere and no way to actually sit and contemplate or even enjoy any silence. I certainly did not feel the presence of the Divine any more strongly than normal. I felt it way more markedly at St. Lawrence Church in Warkworth. I am glad that I visited Lindisfarne, but I don't know that I'll make the effort again. My advice is that if anyone wants to visit for its historical significance, it's worth the visit, but if looking for a thin place, the summer is not the time to go.
At any rate, on the way back, we did a repeat of the way out with the exception of takng a taxi back to the cottage. We were able to catch buses all the way home with no waits. As soon as the bus from Holy Island dropped us off at Beal, the bus for Alnwick appeared, and then when we got to Alnwick, Pam, Michael, and Janet got on a bus back to Alndyke Farm immediately. I had to spend some time at the public computer at the computer shop printing out my ferry ticket so I caught the next bus an hour later.
We spent that evening doing laundry and packing to leave the next day.
Lindisfarne - The Holy Island
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Berwick upon Tweed, England, United Kingdom
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