St Cuthbert. A sculpture by Fenwick Lawson

In the late 9th centuary, the Vikings invaded Lindisfarne and the Community fled carrying its precious coffin together with the Lindisfarne Gospels written "for God and St Cuthbert". For many years the Monks travelled around the North:to Whithorn in Scotland then South across the Pennines To Crayke in Yorkshire. In 883 they arrived in Chester-le-Street and built a wooden church ,there to house the body of their saint