Our house on a high rock ...

Some photographs and some words...

It has ever been my delight to learn or to teach or to write.

The Venerable Bede

The windswept silent ruins of Tynemouth Priory stand within Tynemouth castle as together they perch atop a stark headland overlooking the North Sea. Yet once upon a time, those now ruins stood, in the case of the priory, as a beacon of early Christianity and the castle, a majestic sentinel—both proud representatives of northeast England's turbulent past within the tumultuous tapestry of English history.

What we can still see today gives only a hint of the priory and castle's rich past. My photograph above is of what was once the entrance to the priory, and through that entrance, you can see the remains of the Chancel and Quire.

One intact building (photograph below) still stands. The so-named Percy Chantry, added in the 15th Century. These small chapels usually held masses specifically for the people who paid for their building. The Percys were a powerful northern family, but historians differ on whether they or the Prior John Langton built this Chantry. The Percy coat of arms is visible on the Chantry's ceiling, but Langton's initials also appear more than once.

It was the feud between the Percy’s, and another powerful northern family, the Nevilles, which eventually led to what we now call the ‘Wars of the Roses’ although at the time they were called the ‘Civil Wars’. Some may have heard of the ‘Percy Lion’ that sits atop ‘The Lion Bridge’ that spans the river Aln near Alnwick, the seat of the Percy family, north of Newcastle. Built in 1770 to replace an earlier bridge destroyed by flooding, its name comes from the Lion sculpture that’s distinctive for its long straight tail that by myth points defiantly towards Scotland. 

No one is sure when Christian monks founded a monastery on the Tynemouth site. Although common belief is that it was sometime in the early 7th Century during the reign of either Edwin or Oswald, Angle kings of Northumbria. At that time, Northumbria was Britain's largest Anglo-Saxon kingdom, with its borders being three rivers and a sea: the River Humber in the south, the River Mersey to the west and the Firth of Forth in the north. The eastern border was the North Sea. The kingdom dwarfed the other Angle kingdoms of Mercia (today's Midlands) and East Anglia. Northumbria was also much more significant than any Saxon kingdoms in southerly Britain. The East, Middle, South, and West Saxon kingdoms that today are more commonly known as Essex, Middlesex, Sussex and Wessex. By the end of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, those Britons not prepared to live under their rule migrated to what today is Wales and Cornwall. 

What is certain is that in 671, during the reign of Athelstan, Alfred the Great's grandson and the first 'King’ of England, the monastery proved attractive enough that Danish Pirates plundered it. Later, the Venerable Bede mentions Tynemouth Monastery when writing about Heribald, an abbot of Tynemouth who died in 745. In 792, the monastery's prominence had grown to the point that it saw the burial there of Osred II, the then King of Northumbria. 

The early missionary monks that lived in the monastery sought to spread Christianity throughout Northumbria; however, the monastery suffered multiple raids by Danish invaders throughout the 9th Century before finally, they destroyed it by fire in 875, with the monks perishing in the flames. The Danes also murdered the nuns of a nearby convent, and Tynemouth fell under the Danelaw for the next two hundred years.

Then, in 1083, following the Norman conquest of England, a Christian religious centre, this time as a priory, was re-founded when a monk called Aldwin arrived at 'Monkchester' (City of Monks), believed to be the area on which Newcastle now stands, to bring about a kind of revival of the monastic age of Northumbria. Bishop William Walcher, as both Earl of Northumbria and Bishop of Durham, then granted oversight of the priory and surrounding lands at Tynemouth to the monks of Jarrow (some six miles to the southwest). 

Now more famous in the UK for the 'Hunger Marchers' of the 1930s, a thousand years earlier, Jarrow was then renowned as the home of the Venerable Bede, the man who first recorded the history of the English people.

Bede entered monastic life at the age of seven. Although he lived in the Kingdom of Northumbria, he was keen in his writings that began in 701 to stress the shared history of the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. He became the finest scholar of his age, and no other Anglo-Saxon comes close to his fame other than perhaps the later Alfred the Great, who revered Bede as one of the key figures of the Anglo-Saxon era.

Bede was fluent in Greek and Latin and wrote more than sixty books. Amazingly, most of them survive in locations across Europe. His best-known work is the 'Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum' – A church History of the English People.

But perhaps Bede's most significant legacy came through his chronological work ‘De Temporum Ratione’ (The Reckoning of Time), in which he introduced the dating of years from the birth of Christ using the term Anno Domini (AD) – the year of the Lord. Bede did not invent this system. The suggestion first came from Dionysius Exiguus, a monk from Scythia (modern-day Romania/Bulgaria) during the fifth Century. However, Bede's works, particularly his ‘Historia Ecclesiastica’, promoted the use of this system and popularised it to the extent that it became the norm throughout the Christian world. However, it is increasingly common to see the terms Before Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE) now used instead of BC and AD.

Another critical episode recorded in Bede's history was his recounting of the Synod of Whitby in 664.

The early Irish and Roman Christian missionaries had brought two different methods of calculating the date of Easter to England. So, depending upon which part of England a particular missionary had converted meant, for example, that in Northumbria, people might be celebrating Easter while in Kent, people were still fasting for Lent. To clear up this confusion, church and political leaders met in Whitby Abbey to decide which system the Kingdom of Northumbria would follow. And given its power, what Northumbria decided would mean the other Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms would do the same.

This difference in date between the two arms of Christianity came about because of the complexity of calculating when Easter should fall. The Crucifixion occurred at Passover, so early Christians determined the date of Easter by referring to the Jewish calendar, in which months are based on the moon's cycles and move relative to the solar year.

Although the rest of the Christian world made no change, in response to cultural shifts in the Mediterranean area the rules there for the calculation of Easter gradually became more elaborate. The church there decided that Easter must fall on a Sunday. Then, they decided that Easter must fall on a Sunday after Passover, not on Passover itself. Also, it must not fall before the spring equinox.

The fact that astronomically, a solar cycle isn't exactly 365 days, nor a lunar cycle exactly twenty-eight, complicated matters further. Therefore, finding the date of Easter took some significant understanding in maths and astronomy.

The importance of the Synod of Whitby to Bede was because the unity of Christians mattered. The overarching narrative of his Ecclesiastical History is about the coming together of a united English church. Although Bede had a deep respect for Irish scholarship, he was confident that the Synod made the right decision in adopting the Roman method for calculating Easter and orienting Northumbria (and eventually all the other Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms) towards continental Europe and a unified Christendom.

While Bede didn't venture outside Northumbria, his was a legacy felt throughout Europe. In the ninth Century, a monk in Switzerland summed up Bede's influential status when he wrote:

"God, the orderer of natures, who raised the Sun from the East on the fourth day of Creation, in the sixth day of the world, has made Bede rise from the West as a new Sun to illuminate the world."

As an outpost of the monastery at Jarrow, Tynemouth Priory evolved over time into a centre of learning, prayer, and community life, attracting scholars and pilgrims alike. But it was only a brief time before the religious politics of the time saw the priory fall under the control of St Albans Abbey in what is now Hertfordshire.

By the early medieval period, Tynemouth Priory's influence extended far beyond the confines of its walls as it emerged as a beacon of Christian faith and scholarly pursuit. It proved a lucrative asset for its 'owners' in St Albans, generating much wealth for that faraway monastery and considered their most valuable possession. The money came from pilgrims and significantly from the extensively managed farmlands that Tynemouth Priory owned, including estates donated by the Earl of Northumberland.

As well as offering a good income, another use that the St Albans' owners saw for Tynemouth Priory was as a place of punishment for misbehaving monks. Belief is what follows is from one of the monks so punished…

"Our house is confined to the top of a high rock and is surrounded by sea on every side but one. Here is the approach to the monastery through a gate cut out of the rock so narrow that a cart can hardly pass through. Day and night the waves break and roar and undermine the cliff. Thick sea frets roll in wrapping everything in gloom. Dim eyes, hoarse voices, sore throats are the consequence ... Shipwrecks are frequent. It is a great pity to see the numbed crew, whom no power on earth can save, whose vessel, mast swaying and timbers parted, rushes upon the rock or reef. No ringdove or nightingale is here, only grey birds which nest in rocks and greedily prey upon the drowned, whose screaming cry is a token of a coming storm ...

In the Spring the sea air blights the blossoms of the stunted fruit trees, so that you are lucky to find a wizened apple, though it will set your teeth on edge if you try to eat it. See to it, dear brother, that you do not come to this comfortless place."

We might think that life in 13th Century England was grim, but as you can see, it was grimmer 'up north' even then.

During the medieval era, Northumberland was under constant threat from Scottish raids. Wealthy priories and abbeys were particularly vulnerable to Scottish attacks. Edward I, or 'Longshanks' as some called him because of his height, granted the priors of Tynemouth a licence to build a castle around their priory. This castle was a bastion of defence with its imposing walls, towers, and battlements holding an essential strategic position commanding the mouth of the river and standing as a symbol of authority and power. The relationship between the castle and the priory was a delicate balance of secular and sacred interests. While the priory provided spiritual guidance and solace to the castle's inhabitants, the castle, in turn, offered protection and patronage to the priory. This symbiotic relationship endured for centuries, shaping the region's social, cultural, and political dynamics. 

In 1297, a Scottish army led by 'Braveheart' William Wallace invaded Northumberland. Marching down the Tyne, he laid waste to Hexham (see From Angles to Jacobites) and advanced upon Newcastle. But the Scots, upon this occasion, did not dare to attack Tynemouth Castle as, at the time, it was one of the most extensive fortifications in England.

Longshanks, as did his queen, Margaret, visited Tynemouth Priory and Castle on more than one occasion. Longshanks' son, the ill-fated King Edward II, also visited with his 'favourite' Piers Gaveston. On one occasion, it was from there the two escaped to avoid capture by the 'Lord Ordainers'. These nobles sought to uphold the 'Ordinances of 1311', a series of regulations imposed upon Edward II by the peerage and clergy of England to restrict Edward's power. One of the Ordainers' desires was to see Piers Gaveston exiled. 

Edward II was clearly more afraid of the nobles than the rough North Sea, as when the nobles arrived in Tynemouth, he took a ship, despite the pleas of his heavily pregnant wife Isabella, and headed for York. Piers ventured by land further down the east coast to Scarborough, which was quickly surrounded by the Ordainers to whom Gaveston surrendered. Despite the Ordainers' commitment no harm would come to Gaveston, the Earl of Warwick seized and imprisoned him in Warwick Castle. The earls of Lancaster and Warwick then decided that exile was not an option. A show trial led to the running through of Gaveston with a sword followed by his beheading. As an aside, Edward obviously had other dalliances while in Tynemouth as it’s the burial site of a son, Adam, not born of Isabella.

Edward II clung to power, but after another defeat at the hands of the Scots at Bannockburn, he was back in Tynemouth with Robert the Bruce hot on his heels. Edward again escaped from Tynemouth castle by sea while Robert the Bruce unsuccessfully attacked the castle. Despite these and other occasional attacks, the priory prospered. In 1325, the then-prior oversaw the building of a port at the base of the cliffs on which the castle and priory stand. This port became North Shields that I wrote of in I must go down to the sea again.

Ironically, after seeing off the Scottish Kings, an English King, Henry VIII, and his dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th Century marked the priory's demise. Like many religious institutions across England, the priory fell victim to Henry's sweeping reforms, its lands confiscated, its treasures plundered, its monks pensioned off, and the priory itself left to fall to ruin. Although no longer there to protect the priory, the defensive role of the castle gained even greater importance, with King Henry VIII ordering its modification to serve as an artillery castle with its medieval walls reinforced to meet the threat of potential attacks from Spanish, French or Scottish forces.

Residents of the castle in the late 16th century also made attempts to protect ships from crashing onto the 'Black Middens, ' a series of jagged rocks at the mouth of the Tyne by shining a light at night from the east end of the priory. In the mid 17th Century, a lighthouse replaced that light and then in turn the 'Low' and 'High' lights I wrote of in The Old Light replaced the lighthouse.

Despite all the increased fortification, Tynemouth Castle fell to invaders in the English Civil War. The Scots were back, this time fighting on the side of the English Parliamentarians against King Charles I. Scottish soldiers captured and garrisoned what had been a Royalist stronghold. Although not captured in Newcastle, the Scots held Charles I prisoner in the city following his defeat in the Civil War in 1645. The Scots brought Charles to Tynemouth during negotiations between them and the Parliamentarians over his future. On Christmas night 1646, a Dutch vessel arrived at Tynemouth on a secret mission to rescue him. But Charles was then back in Newcastle and could not get to Tynemouth. In January 1647, he was finally handed over to the Parliamentarians, and the Scots left Newcastle and Tynemouth.

While the Civil War was the last military engagement for the castle, it continued to play an essential role in the defence of England in later centuries. English gunners garrisoned the castle during the Dutch War of the 1650s and a new barracks built in the 1660s. In 1672, Clifford's Fort in North Shields then mainly superseded the castle's defensive role.

However, Tynemouth Castle still had a role to play, seeing the drafting of more soldiers into the castle during the Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745 and during the American War of Independence. During the 18th and early 19th Centuries, the walls of Tynemouth Castle were adapted as coastal gun batteries in response to threats from Napoleonic invasion. Then, in the 1880s, saw the installation of breech-loading guns to protect coal exports in the face of the ever-present danger from Germany. The castle's last combat role was part of Tynemouth's 'Fire Command' during the Great and Second World Wars, defending the Tyne's busy industrial trade. Recognition of this defensive need came at the beginning of the Great War, given that the dockyards on the River Tyne saw the building of a third of Britain's naval ships, ranking only second in importance to Portsmouth.

I'll close this piece with a poem, 'At Tynemouth Priory', written in the late 18th Century by William Lisle Bowles and which carries the sub-title 'After a Tempestuous Voyage' (not unusual when the North Sea decides to be playful)

As slow I climb the cliff's ascending side,

Much musing on the track of terror past,

When o'er the dark wave rode the howling blast,

Pleased I look back, and view the tranquil tide

That leaves the pebbled shore: and now the beam

Of evening smiles on the grey battlement,

And yon forsaken tower that time has rent:--

The lifted oar far off with transient gleam

Is touched, and hushed is all the billowy deep!

Soothed by the scene, thus on tired Nature's breast

A stillness slowly steals, and kindred rest;

While sea-sounds lull her, as she sinks to sleep,

Like melodies that mourn upon the lyre,

Waked by the breeze, and, as they mourn, expire!