Church

St Mary’s Church, Lastingham

Anserdale Lane, Lastingham YO62 6TN

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St Mary’s Church, Lastingham

The Whitby Way leads pilgrims to this blessed shrine church

Highlights

  • Site of St Cedd’s crypt shrine
  • Site of Celtic monastery

St Cedd died here in 664, shortly after losing the argument to keep the Celtic tradition alive in England. Along with other Celtic leaders, he agreed to adopt the Roman calendar and practices following the Synod of Whitby, but passed away a few months later on 26 October at his monastery in Lastingham. He died of the plague, without ever celebrating a Roman Easter.

He is one of the last great Celtic missionaries, traveling the length of England to spread the faith. He founded several religious centers, including Lastingham’s monastery sometime around 654–8. It is only 16 miles from Whitby, a logical place for him to come after the synod had ended.

St Cedd was originally buried outside his wooden monastery, but a stone church was soon built to house his shrine. This early church was replaced by a Norman building in 1078, some of which survives in the current parish church. You can still enter the crypt where his shrine was installed.

It is a highly atmospheric place of worship, its layout following the original Norman design. The church guide says it might incorporate material from an earlier Saxon structure. Certainly, there are several fragments of Saxon and even Roman-era decorative carvings displayed here. Some are almost certainly fragments of St Cedd’s later shrine.

It is one of the most elaborate crypt chapels in existence, a miniature version of a complete church with nave, aisles, and chancel. The church and crypt also have an apse – a rounded east end. The church is built on a slope, and the crypt is mostly above ground. The arch of a doorway, now blocked, can be seen in the north wall.

Entrance to the crypt is down a flight of steps from the center of the nave. The crypt was busy with both pilgrims and tourists when I visited. A small icon of St Cedd was displayed next to the altar, and a much larger icon of the Blessed Virgin and Christ, with a votive candle stand, was in the south aisle.

St Cedd’s relics were eventually removed from Lastingham and venerated with his brother St Chad at Lichfield. Some of their bones are now in Birmingham’s Catholic cathedral (page 347). The church guide implied that some relics might remain buried in Lastingham’s crypt, and I have heard others claim the same thing, but we do not know for sure.

St Chad also worked at Lastingham for a time, becoming abbot after St Cedd’s death. St Chad became the more famous of the two brothers, his shrine at Lichfield a more popular pilgrim destination than Lastingham.

St Owin also worked at Lastingham, and his shrine can be seen at Ely Cathedral. St Cedd built Britain’s oldest surviving church, a prominent structure at Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex (page 131) that served as a cathedral. His monastery at Lastingham was more a private place of retreat in the wilderness, of the sort that Celtic Christians loved. The Venerable Bede describes it as a desolate spot “more suitable for the dens of robbers and haunts of wild beasts” (History iii.23). If so, they’ve done the village up a bit since.

There is a holy well in Lastingham dedicated to St Cedd. The lion’s head spout in the restored wellhouse was dry when I visited but has clearly flowed with water recently, apparently supplied by the mains rather than the original source. It is beside the main road, a short walk from the church. There are two other wells in the village, named after St Chad and St Owin (a variation of St Owin), but they are also disused.

Directions

St Mary’s Church, Anserdale Lane, Lastingham YO62 6TN

www.lastinghamparishchurch.org.uk

W3W: joys.pencil.forgets

GPS: 54.3044N 0.8827W

The church is on the west side of this small village, unlocked during the day.

To find St Cedd’s former well, walk into the village along the main road, signposted to Pickering. The well is 70m along here on the left, immediately after the road crosses a small river. Keep walking past the well to the next junction, 30m away. Turn left for St Chad’s well, 80m along on the right, set into a stone wall, and right for St Owin’s well, 15m after the junction on the left, also set in a stone wall.

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Key facts

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Britain’s Pilgrim Places

This listing is an extract from Britain’s Pilgrim Places, written by Nick Mayhew-Smith and Guy Hayward and featuring hundreds of similar spiritually charged sites and landscapes from across Britain.

Proceeds from sale of the book directly support the British Pilgrimage Trust, a non-profit UK charity. Thank you.

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Church

St Mary’s Church, Lastingham

Anserdale Lane, Lastingham YO62 6TN

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