Newcastle

In order to find internet access in Newcastle, I'm in the Philosophical Society Library. Founded right around 1800, Lord Grey (Brisith politician who was involved with the Reform Bill of 1832) was probably its most famous member. There are three stories of books towering above me; they do not, however, seem to be having any effect on my overall intellectual capacity. Well, here's what I've been doing for two days.

Sunday, I wandered into town only to find the Tourist Information folks closed. A helpful woman on the train suggested that the community of Jesmond was know for its hotels, so I bought a ticket on the Metro and headed up the river Tyne on the underground. At the Jesmond stop, another helpful person suggested a general direction, and fifteen minutes later I was dropping my backpack in the B&B otherwise called the Osbourne Hotel. By the time I had come downstairs, the owner had my first day planned out for me. I had told her that I was traveling to see pilgrimage site, and she gave me Metro directions to the town of Tynemouth--it's so-called because it's located where the mouth of the Tyne River empties into the North Sea. After a brisk walk to the ocean, I found the remains of Tynemouth Abbey and Tynemouth Castle on a cliff overlooking the harbor. Founded around 980, they had stood against Scottish and Danish invasion only to be left abandoned when Henry VIII ordered all monastic groups out of the country in 1539. The ruins of the abbey and the graveyard with over 700 vaults and gravestones made for spectacular viewing on a cold, sunny day at the edge of the North Sea.

After inspecting the ruins, I toured the little seaside town and picked up some fried, fresh cod that should make anyone's mouth water. I walked up the beach to the 18th century church of St. Nicholas where I found a trustees' meeting just breaking up. One of them insisted on giving me a tour of the church in which he, as he put it, "began as a choir boy and will be shrouded for burial here." Nothing really out of the ordinary about the church itself, but I enjoyed his obvious pleasure in showing someone around a place to which he had devoted a lifetime of labor.

Today, I started in the town of Jarrow where I found the Church of St. Paul's. This is the location of the Venerable Bede's monastery and a pilgrimage site for the late Medieval period. Bede, as you may remember, was a local Saxon boy who became, by the late 600s, a great scholar and author of many works including a history of the English church that is the only such book describing the spread of Christanity to England. A 19th-century chruch, built in the style of the chapel of Bede's monastery, is currently on the site. The back section of the church, however, is original to the 7th century. Additionally, walls of the monastery itself and the outlines of the adjoining farm still remain. Also on this site is a museum opened in 2001: Bede's World. It offers a look at life in the 7th century and has a working farm adjoining the museum. The curators operate the farm using 7th century impliments and have even bred or maintained animals--cattle, goats, sheep, geese, chickens, pigs--that are as close as possible to those acutally common to the era. All the buildings--from the houses to the pig's hut--are based on archeological digs in the area.

Having made my way around Bede's World, I walked what will be one of my final pilgrimages for a while. There is a 12.5-mile-long path crossing over the River Don and following the River Wear that leads to St. Peter's, the sister monastery of Bede's St. Paul's. In his works Bede remarks that he traveled this path many times in order to guarantee the working relationship between the two locations that he claimed were but one monastery. It's fairly well marked and at times passes through a nature reserve. So, I walked Bede's path. The frequent incursion of modern industry (it lies along a busy port city, after all) was disruptive, but from time to time, the wildflowers and linnets (song birds typical to the area) reminded me of some of what the Venerable One must have seen. About three and a half hours later, I arrived at St. Paul's and saw the tower and part of a wall remaining from Bede's original monastery. A fine way to pass an afternoon.

I rode the bus back to Newcastle where I visited the New Castle. Yes, an "old castle" was built in 1080 by William the Conquerer's elder son on the site of a Roman fort, but the castle was replaced in 1164 by a "new castle" (now only 843 years old) after which the town is named. I saw the 16th century cathedral--nice. But most of the rest of the afternoon, I was really wondering what it would have been like to run into Bede strolling his pathway 1300 years ago. It's funny that I have read his autobiographical introduction to the History many times, but it never seemed real to me until today. He actually was just a seven-year-old kid once upon a time who was placed in a monastery to learn a life from which he never wanted to waver. I suppose that's why traveling to these places is so important.