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There's something rather menacing about the approach to Holy Island , past the barnacle-encrusted marker poles that line the causeway. The danger of drowning is real enough if you ignore the safe crossing times posted at the start of the three-mile trip across the tidal flats. (The island is cut off for about five hours every day, so to avoid a tedious delay consult the tide timetables at one of the region's tourist offices or in the local newspapers.) Once here, it's easy to picture the furious Viking hordes sweeping across Holy Island, giving no quarter to the monks at this quiet outpost of early Christianity. Today's sole village is plain in the extreme, which doesn't deter summer day-trippers from clogging the car parks as soon as the causeway is open. But Holy Island has a distinctive and isolated atmosphere, especially out of season. Once known as Lindisfarne , Holy Island has an illustrious history. It was here that St Aidan of Iona founded a monastery at the invitation of King Oswald of Northumbria in 634. The monks quickly evangelized the northeast and established a reputation for scholarship and artistry, the latter exemplified by the Lindisfarne Gospels , the apotheosis of Celtic religious art, now kept in the British Museum. The monastery had sixteen bishops in all, the most celebrated being St Cuthbert , who only accepted the job after Ecgfrith, another Northumbrian king, pleaded with him. But Cuthbert never settled here and, within two years, he was back in his hermit's cell on the Farne Islands, where he died in 687. His colleagues rowed the body back to Lindisfarne, which became a place of pilgrimage until 875, when the monks abandoned the island in fear of marauding Vikings, taking Cuthbert's remains with them - the first part of the saint's long posthumous journey to Durham. In 1082 Lindisfarne, renamed Holy Island, was colonized by Benedictines from Durham, but the monastery was a shadow of its former self, a minor religious house with only a handful of attendant monks, the last of whom was evicted at the Dissolution. Just off the village green, the pinkish sandstone ruins of Lindisfarne Priory (daily: Easter-Sept 10am-6pm; Oct 10am-5pm; Nov-Easter 10am-4pm; GBP2.90; EH) are from the Benedictine foundation. Enough survives to provide a clear impression of the original structure, notably the tight Romanesque arches of the nave and the gravity-defying stonework of the central tower's last remaining arch. Behind lie the scant remains of the monastic buildings while adjacent is the mostly thirteenth-century church of St Mary the Virgin , whose delightful churchyard overlooks the ruins. The museum (entrance included in priory fee) features a collection of incised stones that constitute all that remains of the first monastery. The finest of them is a round-headed tombstone showing armed Northumbrians on one side, and kneeling figures before the Cross on the other - presumably a propagandist's view of the beneficial effects of Christianity. Stuck on a small pyramid of rock half a mile away from the village, past the dock and along the seashore, Lindisfarne Castle (April-Oct Mon-Thurs, Sat & Sun, hours according to time of low tide but always including noon-3pm; GBP4.20; NT; tel 01289/389244) was built in the middle of the sixteenth century to protect the island's harbour from the Scots. It was, however, merely a decaying shell when Edward Hudson, the founder of Country Life magazine, stumbled across it in 1901. Hudson bought the castle and turned it into a holiday home to designs by Edwin Lutyens, who used the irregular levels of the building to create the L-shaped living quarters that survive today. The two historic sites are all that most people bother with, but a walk around the island's perimeter is a fine way to spend a couple of hours. Most of the northwestern portion of the island is maintained as a nature reserve : from a bird hide you can spot terns and plovers, and then plod through the dunes and grasses to your heart's content. Back in the village, the Lindisfarne Heritage Centre (daily 10am-5.30pm, though times may vary according to the tides; GBP2; tel 01289/389004, ), occupying a former coaching inn on the main street, holds computer terminals giving you a virtual opportunity to see the major illustrated pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels, and details the wildlife as well as the former living and working conditions on the island.
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