REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1907 187 



By 11 o'clock the members had assembled at the Parish 

 Church, having crossed the Coquet by the ancient stone 

 bridge, rebuilt in 1379, and protected at its Southern end by 

 a tower, which still supplies historic interest to this, the only, 

 approach to Wark worth from the North ; and were escorted 

 through the building by Eev. Jas. Fairbrother, 

 Warkworth vicar of the paiush, who contributed valuable 

 Church. information regarding the history and recon- 



struction of the Church. A hoary antiquity 

 distinguishes it, inasmuch as Ceolwulf on his resignation of 

 the throne of Northumbria in 738, and his retirement into 

 the monastery of Lindisfarne, endowed "the congregation of 

 St. Cuthbert " with the lands of Warkworth, and pre- 

 sumably with the church he had erected there. For a brief 

 space it remained in their possession ; but in the succeeding 

 reign it appears to have been numbered among the heritages 

 which Osbert appropriated for the national use. Its subsequent 

 history is to some extent obscure ; but at the accession of 

 Henry I. it seems to have been vested in the Crown, for at 

 the founding of the Augustinian priory at Carlisle in 1132, 

 the King endowed its canons with Warkworth church as 

 well as with others in Northumberland. The advowson 

 meanwhile was secured to the bishop of Carlisle by whom it 

 was retained till 1886, in which year it was conveyed by 

 deed to the bishop of Newcastle. Whatever form the build- 

 ing dedicated by Ceolwulf assumed, it is clear, from excavations 

 made in 1860 during the progress of a scheme of renovation, 

 that a small stone church of pre-Conquest times existed on 

 the site of the present structure. Its more spacious successor 

 occupies a position on the South bank of the Coquet, at a 

 point where the river abruptly changes its course as it flows 

 Eastward towards the sea ; and by its ampler proportions and 

 graceful spire suggests its indebtedness to the benefactions 

 of wealthy patrons, as well as its ministering to a community 

 larger than would have been looked for there at the beginning 

 of the r2th century. Like many another church of that period, 

 it originally comprised a chancel (with the unusual feature 

 of a heavily groined roof), and a nave (90 feet 7 inches by 

 25 feet 2 inches), without either aisle or tower. The chancel 

 arch is rounded and enriched with roll and hollow mouldings, 



