Churches of Northumberland
On Monday 11th May John Grundy visited the village to give us a talk on the Churches of Northumberland. It was suitably held in St Andrew’s Church and organised jointly between the Church and Heddon Local History Society. John still has a dedicated following and some 50 people were treated to him at his best; a two hour romp through Northumberland and Durham, given without notes and with his traditional style and humour. Things he has forgotten, mostly dates, he just makes up, making a joke of it, then filling out another impossibly complex tale with more remembered facts that no one else could possibly hold in their head. Note taking was impossible although I tried.
On Monday 11th May John Grundy visited the village to give us a talk on the Churches of Northumberland. It was suitably held in St Andrew’s Church and organised jointly between the Church and Heddon Local History Society. John still has a dedicated following and some 50 people were treated to him at his best; a two hour romp through Northumberland and Durham, given without notes and with his traditional style and humour. Things he has forgotten, mostly dates, he just makes up, making a joke of it, then filling out another impossibly complex tale with more remembered facts that no one else could possibly hold in their head. Note taking was impossible although I tried.
St Andrew's Church, Heddon on the Wall from an old postcard.
The basis of his talk, illustrated with a slideshow, was the history of the churches in Northumberland followed by an all too brief discussion of St Andrew’s itself, showing how the features of our parish church fit into the whole. If his enthusiasm could be bottled, John could make a fortune.
He started in the ‘far from Dark’ Ages, following the Christianization of Northumbria with mention of the monasteries at Hexham and Lindisfarne (sacked by the Danes in 793). Within just 12 miles down-river from Hexham, three or four churches, including that at Heddon, preserve fabric from this early period. Like Jarrow and Monkwearmouth in County Durham they are typified by having a long, tall and narrow nave (as at Corbridge and Bywell St Peter) and a characteristic building style of large stone slabs laid on their sides with longer faces along alternate walls (side-alternate). Escomb Church near Bishop Auckland is a particularly well preserved example of a Saxon church sitting in its circular churchyard, at one time an island in marshes along the River Wear.
Escomb Saxon Church. Photo by A Curtis (2010).
St Andrew’s Church at Bywell has a Saxon tower built of Roman stones and even toilet seats used as openings for the belfry. Such towers probably date to the period of peace following Viking raids and settlement and can also be found at Warden, Corbridge and Ovingham.
 St Andrew's Church, Bywell. Photo by A Curtis (2010). |  St Andrew's Church, Bywell. Photo by A Curtis (2010). |
Several other churches retain Saxon features of different kinds and are difficult to date. St Mary’s on Holy Island, for example, retains an Anglo-Saxon round-headed arch, above the C13th chancel arch, and a high-level doorway above that, formerly hidden by plaster. No one knows what these doors were for but John’s theory of the vicar using it for dramatic entrance was a nice image.
Church of St Mary the Virgin. Holy Island. Photo by Derek Voller (2013).
John explained how the Normans were slow in subduing the north following their invasion; Bamburgh was founded as late as 1150. The cults of local saints such as Cuthbert were adopted. Churches at Norham, Warkworth and Chillingham were early examples, protected by their nearby castles.
Tomb in St. Peter's Church, Chillingham. Photo by Derek Voller (2012).
The tiny church at Old Bewick, founded by the Priors of Tynemouth around 1150 in a more remote location, has a Romanesque rounded apse at the east end, hidden from the outside by later builders who preferred square buildings. A nice example for the Norman period is the little church of St Aidan in the deserted village of Throckington with its tunnel-vaulted chancel.
 Old Bewick Church. Photo by Dave Dunford (2007). |  St Aidan's Church, Thockrington. Photo by Oliver Dixon (2013). |
As the C13th came to an end, increasing trouble from north of the Border had a huge effect on Northumberland building. Even Durham Cathedral had to be ‘half church of God, half castle ‘gainst the Scots’. Tynemouth, Lindisfarne, Hulne and Blanchland all needed to be defended. Few parish churches remain from this period and are relatively small and plain, as at Alnham, Bellingham and Elsdon.
 St Michael and All Angels Church, Alnham. Photo by Russel Wills (2013). |  St Cuthbert's Church, Elsdon. Photo by Colin Kinnear (2010). |
Ponteland church was rebuilt in 1350 with a massive vaulted porch for security. The vaulted architecture of St Gregory the Great (John wondered what happened to ‘St Gregory the Useless') at Kirknewton, even more in need of keeping the Scots out.
St. Gregory's Church, Kirknewton. Photo by Ian Hindmarsh (2006).
Coming up to our own times, St Aidan at Thorneyburn was built in 1818 after Trafalgar, by the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital, to provide a living for former naval chaplains. Humshaugh and Wark are similar. St Oswin at Wylam was built in 1886 by R J Johnson in perpendicular gothic style in memory of William Hedley; St Christopher at Gunnerton in 1899 by the Rev. Hawes who later became a Roman Catholic, building churches in Australia and eventually retiring to a life of a hermit on Cat Island in the Bahamas.
St Aidan's Church, Thorneyburn. Photo by wfmillar (2010).
 St. Christopher's Church, Gunnerton. Photo by Bill Cresswell (2006). |  St Christopher's Church, Gunnerton. Photo by Roger Smith (2008). |
Monuments, gravestones and the richly important ‘stuff’ of the church interior were also well illustrated. John’s examples were the wonderful Kempe stained glass windows of Simonburn Church and the more recent window by J E Nuttgens in St Mary and St Michael at Doddington, featuring a cascade of brightly coloured angels. St Mungo at Simonburn has a memorial recording a lady who managed to marry all five of her daughters to bishops!
 St. Mungo's Church, Simonburn. Photo by Mike Quinn (2012). |  St. Mungo's Church, Simonburn. Photo by Mike Quinn (2012). |
The part of his talk relating to St Andrews I will have to leave to a later article as, like John Grundy, I have run out of time. It was a delight to sit in our own beautiful Northumbrian church to be amused, entertained and educated, knowing that it has been, and still remains, a place of active worship and an most important centre of our community.
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