St Aidan's Church, Bamburgh

One of the last stopping points on the 97-mile St Oswald’s Way

‍Highlights

• Site of St Aidan’s Death
• Miraculous Wooden Beam

St Aidan passed away at the church he built on Bamburgh’s headland, with sublime views along the sandy Northumbrian coast. Six miles to the north lies Lindisfarne with its prominent rocky outcrop. Both sites were founded by the tireless Celtic missionary in 635, under the patronage of St Oswald, King of Northumbria.

When the saint fell sick, his companions built him a shelter against the western end of his church. He died here on 31 August 651, propped up against one of the heavy wooden buttresses. From the site of his shelter, you can look along the coast to Lindisfarne. I fancy he died gazing through the coastal spray at the monastery that was to become Celtic Christianity’s finest English achievement.

Many still rate Lindisfarne as England’s holiest place, where St Aidan was originally taken for burial. His grave is now lost, but the saint has left a permanent relic in his church at Bamburgh – the wooden beam on which he lay dying all those years ago.

This was miraculously saved on two occasions when the wooden church was burned down – once by accident and once by the pagan King Penda. It has now been set into the ceiling directly above the font. Though hard to make out in the gloom, the beam is obviously ancient and serves no structural purpose. It is remarkable to see a relic in more or less the same condition described by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century: “When the church was rebuilt for the third time, the beam was not employed as an outside support again, but was set up inside the church as a memorial of this miracle” (History iii.17). It has been retained through all subsequent rebuilding works.

At the other end of the church, on the left as you enter the chancel, is a modern shrine marking the place where St Aidan died. It has a canopy and a memorial stone and was unveiled by the Archbishop of York in 2013.

Bede reserved some of his highest praise for St Aidan, describing him as “a man of outstanding gentleness, holiness, and moderation”. The saint was invited from Iona by St Oswald as a missionary and had permanent success in establishing Christianity in Northumbria, as Bamburgh’s parish church continues to demonstrate.

His official position was bishop of Lindisfarne, but he continued to travel widely in keeping with Lindisfarne’s purpose as a missionary center. Whenever he had money, he would give it away or use it to buy people out of slavery. Some of the liberated slaves became his disciples and went on to be ordained as priests.

St Aidan is the patron saint of firefighters. One night while in retreat on Inner Farne Island, he saw flames in Bamburgh, threatening the wooden castle where the king lived. The saint prayed, and the wind miraculously changed direction, driving away the pagan aggressors (History iii.16).

Bamburgh’s current church was built in the late 12th and early 13th centuries on the site of the original. For a time, it served as a monastic church but converted to parish use at the Dissolution. Apart from the miraculous beam, nothing survives of St Aidan’s original building. There is a relic crypt that some claim was temporarily used to house St Oswald’s right arm (later moved to Peterborough, page 127). The crypt is under the chancel, its entrance outside in the north wall. A new ossuary was added to the crypt in 2016 to house the bones of Saxons excavated nearby, the innovative mix of archaeology and digital display winning a UK heritage prize in 2020.

The churchyard also has the grave of Grace Darling, a heroic young woman famous for risking her life to save 13 shipwrecked people from the Farne Islands in 1838. A stained-glass window inside the church appears to depict her with a halo, a brave woman whose saintly actions inspired the nation. A museum has been opened by the RNLI opposite the church.

Directions‍

St Aidan’s Church, Church Street/Radcliffe Road, Bamburgh NE69 7AB‍

www.staidan-bamburgh.co.uk‍

W3W: typed.entitle.pats

GPS: 55.6079N 1.7184W‍

The church is on the west side of town, beside the B1342 as you head inland from the castle. It is open daily from 9 am to dusk.