20th March marks St Cuthbert’s Day, the day when the life of Northumbria’s patron saint, St Cuthbert is remembered and celebrated. It was on that day in 687 that Cuthbert died; not that that was the end of his story as we shall see. With the days starting to get longer and the weather slowly getting warmer, March also seems like a good time to think about getting out and about again into our beautiful Northumbrian countryside. So, with all that in mind, here is part 1 of a series, examining where you might like to go in Northumbria to see some of the many outstanding places linked to St Cuthbert, or Cuddy as he is affectionately known in his native land.
Heavenfield
Counterintuitively, our story starts around the time of Cuthbert’s birth, but not with his actual birth. It was about the same year as Cuthbert was born that there was a battle near Corbridge in the Tyne Valley. It was here that Oswald was able to gain the crown of Northumbria and reunite the smaller kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, ushering in Northumbria’s Golden Age.
Oswald himself was about 20 years old in 634. His father was Æthelfrith, who had been a successful Bernician ruler who, after some years in power in Bernicia, also became king of Deira, so uniting Northumbria for the first time, although the peoples of Bernicia and Deira arguably had distinctive identities even after unification.
A kingdom in turmoil
In around 616, Æthelfrith met his death at the hands of Raedwald of East Anglia at the battle of the River Idle. Raedwald in turn put Edwin, Acha’s brother, on the Northumbrian throne, so forcing Oswald to flee with his mother Acha and his brother Oswiu as well as several other siblings, to the Celtic Christian stronghold of Iona off the Scottish coast. It was here that Oswald grew up, waiting for his chance to return….
In the meantime, Edwin had managed to make himself a powerful king of Northumbria, subduing both Mercia to the south and large parts of the nascent Scottish kingdom to the north. All that was to change however, when a coalition between Penda of Mercia and British king Cadwallon of Gwynedd fought and killed Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield. Then, following that, in Northumbria, a Welsh army led by Cadwallon killed Oswald’s elder half-brother Eanfrith who had claimed Bernicia, and also Edwin’s cousin Osric who had claimed Deira.
A new king arises
So the stage was set for Oswald to return. With support from the Cumbrian kingdom of Rheged, he was able to land on the Solway near Carlisle (OS Landranger Map 85) with an army, horses and weapons, before making his way to Heavenfield (OS Landranger 87 9469 ), just north of present day Corbridge and Hexham up on the Whinsill near to where Hadrian had built his wall 5 centuries earlier..
You can visit Heavenfield today and Max Adams in The King in the North, has the following description of Heavenfield today “There is a church at Heavenfield today: squat and domestic, no more than three hundred years old, the belfry mounted at its west end seemingly a decorative afterthought. The gnomon of its sundial dispassionately tracks the passing of daylight hours year after year. There are few dwellings nearby whose families might be summoned to prayer by its tolling bell. Beyond it to the north are bleak carrs and scattered farmsteads which have stood time out of mind, locked tight into the fabric of the land by drystone walls”.
Adams goes on to say how Oswald came up to Cadwallon’s camp at Corbridge in the early morning, catching him unprepared and Cadwallon’s army was then overwhelmed at the river crossing over the Tyne and Cadwallon slain.
Furthermore, Adams notes that, “Oswald’s triumph ensured not just that he was accepted as the rightful and legitimate king of Bernicia but also through his mother Acha’s pedigree, the termination of Edwin’s line and his undisputed claim as a great warrior of Deira. The two historically hostile rival kingdoms which had been held together by main force under Aethelfrith and Edwin were now united under a single house and a king with the immediate military, political and fiscal capital to create a kingdom in his own vision: one in which church and state were mutually reinforcing facets of the same divine dynastic purpose.”
The victory was to have profound consequences for the culture of the future kingdom of Northumbria – and not least for the life of St Cuthbert himself. Oswald had grown up on Iona in the court of Dal Riata, very much in the bosom of the Celtic Christian church and his Northumbria was going to be very much a Christian kingdom. Indeed it is noted by Historic UK that “the morning before the battle Oswald was said to have erected a wooden cross and knelt before it, pleading for God’s help.”
Arrival of Aidan
So it was that the new king Oswald sent for a priest from Iona to come and convert the Northumbrians and help him to ensure that Northumbria was very much a Christian kingdom. The first priest who came was too stern with the recalcitrant Northumbrians and went home defeated, so Aidan came to our native land in his place. So it was that Aidan came to Oswald’s palace at Bamburgh (OS Landranger 75 1834).
Aidan then chose the remote island of Lindisfarne (OS Landranger 75 1242), just to the north of Bamburgh as the site for his church. Aidan spent most of his days travelling round the wild country and talking to whoever he encountered along with a translator because Aidan spoke the Gaelic of Dalriada or Dal Riata.
Aidan was able to learn enough of the Northumbrian language and then went round on foot, refusing the king’s offer of a horse as he didn’t want to be cut off from the common people. He established schools and worked for the freedom of Celts held as slaves
Oswald followed Aidan’s charitable example and cared for the poor – at one Easter banquet he impulsively gave the silver vessel containing the main dish to the poor who were crowded outside. It has been said that Aidan then touched the king’s right hand saying: ‘May this hand never perish’.
Ten years after arriving in Northumbria, Aidan fell sick on one of his many journeys and was brought to Bamburgh. Supported by friends he looked across to Lindisfarne and died.
Mary Low, in St Cuthbert’s Way. A Pilgrim’s Companion has noted that Cuthbert was born within a few months of Aidan and the Iona mission arriving at Lindisfarne. It is said that Cuthbert worked for a while as a shepherd in the hills near the River Leader near Channelkirk, near Oxton (OS Landranger 73 4953).
Meanwhile, as Aidan breathed his last, up in the Lammermuir Hills or the Cheviot Hills above Glendale (OS Landranger 74 7765 ), a young lad of seventeen by the name of Cuthbert was tending a flock of sheep he had been tasked with looking after. Possibly close to where Smailholm Tower is today. Cuthbert must have known about Aidan – when he is said to have seen beautiful and unearthly lights in the shape of an angel going up into the dark night sky, he recognised that it was Aidan’s soul ascending to Heaven and a sign that he was to follow in Aidan’s footsteps.
I hope you enjoy visiting sites associated with St Cuthbert, in our beautiful Northumbrian countryside. If you want to remember St Cuthbert’s concern for the environment and mitigate any use of fossil fuels in doing so, you can do so by clicking here.
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