Back on the Moors

 

Last Wednesday was the start of our mini-heatwave. I decided to finish work a little early and head off up on to the Moors for a walk. I drove over to White Coppice and parked up opposite the cricket field and then set up towards Great Hill.

Crossing over the Goyt (the channel that takes water from the reservoir at Roddlesworth to the one at Anglezarke

I decided to follow the path along the river

Although a today it’s a peaceful rural hamlet on the outskirts of Chorley, White Coppice was once an industrial village and there are plenty of traces of the lead mining and quarrying that used to take place here up the clough.

I took the path up the side of the hill up on to the moor

and headed towards Great Hill

Looking out over to Anglezarke. The mound of Round Loaf was visible as was the main mast on Winter Hill. Extensive cotton grass (“bog cotton”) could be seen making the moor almost look like it was covered with snow.

There was plenty of it towards the top of Great Hill too

Apparently it’s the official flower of Greater Manchester!

On reaching the summit, visibility was good (much better than the last time I was here at the beginning of May). Looking north east over towards Darwen Tower and Pendle Hill

The view towards Winter Hill

I descended down the southern side of the prominence and then took the path west to the ruins of great Hill Farm

and then climbed back on to the moor.

Reaching the intersection

I decided to take the path over the top of the moor towards Brinscall

A group of lads on their D of E exhibition had strayed off their route. They should have been heading to White Coppice.

I put them right and then carried on, passing a line of abandoned shooting buts

There was a good view over to Darwen Tower

After a short while I reached the path that would take me down off the moor towards Brinscall

Rather than cut through Wheelton Plantation, I decided to walk down into the village. I skirted the old Lodge (a small reservoir that would originally have fed a mill)

Taking the path along the Goyt back to White Coppice

Melrose Abbey

It was around midday when we dropped D and J off at Morebattle to pick up their car.We said our goodbyes and then we set off to drive over to Melrose. It was a pleasant day so rather than head off straight home, and get caught up in rush hour traffic on the Motorway, we’d decided to go and have a look at the Abbey that’s the start of the St Cuthbert’s trail and which we’d missed by starting at Morebattle.  Although it would have taken a couple of days to walk between the two Scottish Border towns it was less than an hour’s drive.

Just like Lindisfarne Priory, the ruined Abbey wasn’t the one where St Cuthbert lived. It’s a later Cistercian building founded in 1136. In fact, the original Celtic Christian monastery was located about two miles east of the town.

The Abbey is allegedly the resting place of the heart of Robert the Bruce and it’s resting place is marked by this memorial

Of course, there’s no real evidence that his heart is actually buried here.

The original building would have been Romanesque in style (like Lindisfarne Priory) but being close to the border with England the area was regularly a war zone and, inevitably, the Abbey was seriously damaged. There are some traces of the original building, such as this doorway

but it is a Gothic structure, built after1385, with characteristic high pointed arches, large windows with ornate tracery and flying buttresses.

The remains of the ornate stone vaulting over the presbytery

Elaborate capitals

A good view of the nearby Eildon hills from the roof

There isn’t much left of the cloisters and the monks’ living accommodation.

However, there’s a good little museum in the restored Commendator’s House, built in the late 1500s – much of it’s stone being robbed from the Abbey buildings. (Commendators were lay administrators who, were placed in charge of abbeys in Scotland)

Mussels

St Mary’s Church, Lindisfarne

St Mary’s church sits directly opposite the Priory Church on Lindisfarne (Holy Island). It’s the oldest, complete building on the island. Parts of the structure are thought to date back to the 7th century, several hundred years before the appearance of the Priory. However, it’s main structure is from the the 12th century, when it was built by the Benedictine monks from the Priory to serve the local population, with additions in the 13th Century and later.

It’s built from cream, pink and grey sandstone and architecturally it’s largely a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic.

Inside we can see Romanesque arches and piers along the north aisle. with an Early English Gothic arch at the east end of the nave leading to the Chancel. This wall is the oldest part of the church, dating back to Saxon times. The small door at the top of the wall is from this period.

The south aisle has pointed Gothic arches

This striking statue – The Journey – is by Fenwick Lawson, who also created the statue of St Cuthbert in the Priory ruins. It was carved from elm using a chainsaw and depicts the monks of Lindisfarne carrying St.Cuthbert’s body on the first stage of its journey around Northumberland when the monks deserted the island following the Viking raids. There’s a bronze casting of this work in the cathedral at Durham.

This is St Peter’s chapel in the north aisle, dedicated to local fishermen

There was some attractive stained glass, particularly these two lancet windows at the west end of the church, of St Cuthbert

and St Aiden

They were designed by Leonard Evetts

Lindisfarne Priory

Lindisfarne Priory is the official end of St Cuthbert’s trail so we went to have a look shortly after we arrived on Holy Island. These days the ruins are cared for English Heritage who have a small museum telling the history of the site and putting it into context.

This structure didn’t exist at the time of St Cuthbert. The original Celtic Christian Monastery was abandoned in 875 following the Viking raids. These are the ruins of the Norman Monastery that was founded in the 12th Century., the church being constructed around 1150. Consequently it was a Romanesque building and was modelled on Dirham cathedral.

The Priory was closed in 1537 during the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII and, as was generally the case, the buildings were used as a “quarry” . Stone from the Priory is known to have been used during the construction of LIndisfarne Castle, for example.

Although you can get a good look at the buildings from St Mary’s churchyard, the adjacent field and from on top of the Heugh, we paid our entry fee that allowed us to get close up to the ruins and allowed entry into the museum.

We entered from St Mary’s churchyard through the West Front

This is the West Front, seen from the inside. Typically Romanesque with it’s rounded arches and thick masonry. It was originally flanked by two towers; there are substantial remnants of one of them

Battlements and cross-shaped arrowloops were added in the mid-14th century when the whole priory was fortified in response to the outbreak of war with the Scots.

This is the north aisle of the Nave. The rounded arches are supported by massive piers, very typical of Romanesque churches. They’re decorated in a style similar to some of the later piers in Durham Cathedral.

A view from the east of the end of the nave

This is the “rainbow arch”, a surviving rib from the Crossing where the main tower of the church would have stood.

These are the remains of the Presbytery at the east end of the church. It was rebuilt in a more Gothic style with large windows pointed arches and exterior buttresses supporting the walls.

There are only limited remains of the monks’ living quarters to the south of the church. It wasn’t a large community.

This bronze sculpture of St Cuthbert, which stands at the south end of the site, was created by Durham born sculptor, Fenwick Lawson

Holy Island

We arrived on Holy Island, also known as Lindisfarne, around midday. We could have picked up the car and our luggage and headed home but had decided to stay the night on the island and had rooms booked in the Ship Inn. Due to the tide times we couldn’t leave until just after midday the next day, so we had about 24 hours to look around. Luckily the weather held with rain overnight and early morning, but it had finished by the time we’d had our breakfast, checked out and loaded up the car so it was dry while we spent our last few hours mooching around.

Holy Island is a major tourist attraction and gets very busy during the periods when travel across the causeway is possible. However once the tide starts coming coming back in the hordes depart leaving the island very quiet indeed. Wandering around in the evening and morning rather reminded me of the time we spent at Portmerion in Wales where hotel guest have the village to themselves after the day visitors have left.

Lindisfarne, as the island was originally known, was an isolated island off the coast of an isolated region – Northumbria until a monastery was founded by the Irish monk Saint Aidan, from Iona off the west coast of Scotland  at the request of King Oswald. The monastery became an important base for Christianity in the north of England which might seem strange given its seemingly isolated position. But it must be remembered that in those times travel over land was extremely difficult and communication was largely by sea. Lindisfarne was well positioned for that.

St Cuthbert came to Lindisfarne in around 665 as prior. In 684 he was made bishop of Lindisfarne but by late 686 resigned and became a hermit, initially on St Cuthbert’s Isle, traditionally located just of the main Lindisfarne island and then on Inner Farne Island (two miles from Bamburgh, just down the coast), which was where he eventually died in 687. He was buried at Lindisfarne. Miracles were soon reported at St Cuthbert’s shrine and Lindisfarne was quickly established as the major pilgrimage centre in Northumbria.

12th century wall-painting of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral (Source: Wikipedia)

Lindisfarne remained an important Christian centre until the Viking raids started in the 9th century. In 875 the monks abandoned the island taking with them the body of St.Cuthbert, together with other relics and treasures which had survived the Viking raids. After the Norman Conquest a Benedictine community was established on Lindisfarne, which now also became known as ‘Holy Island’. The current Priory dates from this period.

This statue to St Aidan is located inside the churchyard, outside the Priory walls

Here are the priory ruins (more about this in a later post)

This is reputed to be St Cuthbert’s Island where his hermitage was located before he moved to the more isolated Inner Farne

There’s a small community that lives on the island but I guess that a good proportion of the attractive buildings are holiday cottages.

Lindisfarne Castle, which is owned by the National Trust, is currently undergoing major restoration work so we couldn’t visit.It was built on the highest point of the island, a whinstone hill called Beblow, between 1550 and 1570 as a fort and was home to temporary garrisons of soldiers on detachment from the larger force based at nearby Berwick. In 1901, long abandoned as a military outpost, it was bought by Edward Hudson,  the owner of Country Life magazine, for use as a holiday home. He had it refurbished in the Arts and Crafts style by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

He also had a walled garden created by Gertrude Jekyll, who was a friend of Lutyens, between 1906 and 1912. It’s a short distance from the castle building and had originally been the garrison’s vegetable plot. It was open and free to visit (although we are members of the National Trust) so we went and had a look.

Being early in the season for such a bleak and windswept location, the flowers were only just starting to come into bloom. It will look better in a few weeks time.

I liked this little monument to Gertrude Jeckyll

After we’d looked around the garden we continued along the path towards the sea. We were quite amazed to see lots and lots of small cairns and other structures made from rocks and pebbles from the beach which had been built along a grass ridge running next tot he beach.

There was even a mermaid

and a dolphin

We made our own modest contribution to the vast collection, and then carried on down to the beach.

It was a fine day and we could see Banburgh Castle and the Farne Islands over on the horizon.

Turning back inland towards the castle, we could see the old lime kilns.

There had been small scale lime production on the island since the end of the 18th Century and these much larger industrial scale kilns were constructed in 1860 and were operated until the beginning of the 20th Century.

Being interested in industry and industrial history it was good to get inside and have a close look.

It would have been like Dante’s inferno working on the kilns with the high temperatures, dust and fumes.

We headed back past the castle returning to the village.

Time for a welcome cold drink at the Ship Inn

The next morning we had a couple of hours to look round the island before the causeway opened.

We had a look around the harbour. I rather liked the way upturned boats were used as huts! Rather like Great Expectations.

Lobster pots piled up.

We walked over to the Heugh, a rocky outcrop.

There were good views over the Abbey and over the sea to the mainland

We walked past St Mary’s church

and had a look inside (another post, I think!)

and then past St Cuthbert’s United Reform Church

I rather liked this sculpture on the outside of the building

We walked into the village and had a look round some shops and then went for a coffee in an excellent little coffee shop.

Watch out for the sparrows and other small birds in garden. They’re not shy at hoovering up crumbs and trying to pinch food from the tables.

After we’d finished we could see delivery vehicles arriving in the village. It was time to return to the car and drive over the causeway and head back to Morebattle where we’d started our journey to pick up D’s car.

I’m glad we took the opportunity to stay on the island rather than rush back after we’d finished our walk. It allowed us to explore properly and enjoy the peace and quiet while the day visitors had gone back over the causeway.

A Long Walk–Part 4

The final leg of our journey – a few miles that would take us from the Lindisfarne Inn over to Lindisfarne, or ‘Holy Island’ itself. Purists would have walked back the couple of miles to Fenwick and rejoined the official route over to the causeway. However we decided we’d take the direct route, down the road through Beal.

We were a little early as the tide had only started to recede, so we had a little wait before we could join the causeway.

There are two options for walking over to the island. Down the causeway or along the ‘Pilgrim’s Route’ following a line of poles across the sand. I quite fancied the latter but knew it was the more difficult choice in many ways, even though it is the shorter route. It would be difficult underfoot (it’s best to go barefooted and with shorts or trousers rolled up) and we would have had to wait a couple more hours before we could set off before the water had receded enough to risk it. So it was down the causeway for us

We passed the refuge built for foolish drivers who don’t pay attention to the tide tables, or think they can beat the tide.

The island was in view.

We had to dodge the cars, vans and lorries, some of them driving too fast and recklessly and it would have been quite miserable, I think, if it was raining and windy as there’s no shelter. Luckily for us the cloud was clearing and the sun started to come out.

Eventually we made it across.

I diverted across to the Ship Inn to check that my car was still in one piece – it was (phew!)

and then cut across to the Priory, the official end of the route