A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



After her departure the monastery at Hartle- 

 pool is heard of no more, 13 but it is thought that 

 it did not long survive. Such at least is the 

 inference to be drawn from the discoveries 

 made in the cemetery. 14 This was apparently 

 only some 20 yards in length, and in it were 

 two rows of interments, all, with two exceptions, 

 those of females, and all lying, in pagan fashion, 

 north and south. 16 The heads rested on pillow- 

 stones, and the appearance of the teeth shows 

 that these Christians lived on the same kind of 

 food as the pagans in Kent. Some bone pins, 

 a bone needle, and a few pieces of coloured glass 

 were found, and the tombstones were adorned 

 with crosses. 16 



2. ST. HILDA'S FIRST MONASTERY 



In the year 648 Hilda, being recalled from 

 East Anglia to her own country by Bishop 

 Aidan, received from him a hide of land l in 

 the district north of the River Wear called 

 Werhale or Wyrale, where for one year she led 

 a monastic life with a very few companions ; 2 

 but Hieu relinquishing her charge 3 in 649, 

 Hilda at once abandoned her small monastery, 

 and repaired to Hartlepool, where she became 

 abbess. 4 



The site of her first monastery is not known, 

 but it is thought that it may have been at South 

 Shields, where St. Hilda's church now stands. 8 

 Churches in Northumbria were usually called 

 after the saints who founded them, and certainly 

 Hilda's name has clung with great pertinacity 

 to this particular locality. The chapel there 

 has always been called ' St. Hild's,' often with 

 no other indication of locality ; and the name 

 clings to the spot in other ways, e.g. in the case 

 of the 'St. Hild's fish,' so-called from 1402 to 

 1734.* Moreover, Bede speaks definitely of a 

 monastery on the south side of the Tyne, near 

 the mouth of the river, as existing in 65 1 7 

 (i.e. only two years after St. Hilda left her 



11 Arch, Aeliana, xvii, 205. In the 'Legend of 

 St. Cuthbert' by R. Hegg (1626) the following 

 passage occurs : ' Then [i.e. in A.D. 800] perished 

 that famous emporium of Hartlepool, where the 

 religious Hieu built a nunnery . . . whose ruins show 

 how great she was in her glory.' 



"Ibid. 206. "Ibid. 



16 Jcani. Brit. Arch. Assoc. i, 189. See fuller ac- 

 count in V.C.H. Dur. \, ' Anglo-Saxon Remains.' 



1 Arch. Aeliana, xvii, 203-4. 



1 Bede, Hist. Eccles. lib. iv, c. xxiii. 



3 See above, under Hartlepool. 



4 Arch. AeKana, xvii, 203-4. ' Ibid, xix, 47-75. 



6 Ibid. The above statement is peculiarly true of 

 St. Hilda. Short as was her sojourn in Hartness, 

 she has ever since been taken as the patron saint of 

 Hartlepool (Surt. Hist. Dur. iii, 99, note C), and the 

 same is equally the case at Whitby, with which she 

 was connected for a longer period. 



7 Bede, De Mirac. Sti. Cuthberti, i, 5 ; Vita Sti. Cuth- 

 b*rti, iv, 214. 



establishment), and relates an anecdote of the 

 brethren belonging to it. This same story 

 occurs in a life of St. Cuthbert written about 

 I45O, 8 where the site is thus described : 



... We rede 

 Be the telling of Saint Bede, 

 How sometime was a monastery 

 That eftir was a nonry [nunnery], 

 Bot a litil fra Tynemouth. 

 That mynster stode into the South, 

 Whare Saint Hilde Chapel standcs nowe, 

 Thar it stode some tyme trewe. 



Bede says the house was founded for men, 

 but was afterwards changed, and filled with 

 virgins only. 9 By 686 this change had taken 

 place, for in his final visitation of his diocese 

 Bishop Cuthbert 



came to a monastery of virgins which, as has been 

 shown above, was situated not far from the mouth of 

 the River Tyne, where he was honourably welcomed 

 by the religious, and, in a worldly sense, most noble 

 handmaid of Christ, the Abbess Verca. 10 



An additional reason for thinking that this 

 might well have been the site of St. Hilda's 

 first house is afforded by the fact that it is 

 thought to have been the birthplace of Oswin. n 



Nothing is known of the ultimate fate of this 

 monastery, and no trace of it has been found. 

 It was probably wholly or partially destroyed by 

 the Danes. 12 



3. GATESHEAD HOUSE 



There appears to be no record of the founda- 

 tion of this house, but it was in existence before 

 A.D. 653.* At that time Uttan the priest, the 

 brother of Adda, was abbot. 2 He was an illus- 

 trious presbyter, a man of great gravity and 

 veracity, and on this account was honoured by 

 all men, even by princes. 3 Bede tells how 

 Uttan was sent 4 to Kent to bring thence a wife 

 for King Oswi ; how before starting he asked 

 the prayers of Bishop Aidan for himself and his 

 people on their long journey ; and how Aidan 



'Life of St. Cuthbert (Surt. Soc.), bk. ii, 11. 1 123-30. 



9 Bede, Vita Sti. Cuthberti, iv, 214. St. Hilda was 

 in other instances placed by St. Aidan in charge of 

 mixed monasteries of men and women. 



10 Ibid. 316. It was this same Verca who pre- 

 sented him with the linen in which, at his own 

 request, his body was wrapped after death ; ibid. 324, 

 cf. Reginald of Durham, Libelhts (Surt. Soc.), 86. 



"Arch. Aeliana, xix, 47-75. "Ibid. 



'Mr. Hodgson Hinde in the Gent. Mag. (1852 

 [2], p. 391) says: 'It seems probable that the 

 monastery was founded in the episcopate of either 

 Aidan or Finan, and was abandoned when Colm.in 

 and his followers left Northumberland. A chapel 

 (ecclesiola) existed in Gateshead in 1080, and was the 

 scene of Bishop Walcher's murder ; this probably 

 marked the site of the abandoned monastery.' 



* Bede, Hist. Eccles. lib. iii, c. 2 1 . 



'Ibid. 4 c. A.D. 651. 



80 



