Lindisfarne Abbey

After leaving Gateshead I was planning to visit some Hadrians Wall sites but then realised that the A1 took me straight past the causeway for Holy Island, so I decided to head up and take a detour to Lindisfarne Abbey, the famous site of the first major Viking attack in 793.







The abbey itself hung around until after the 1500s when it fell into disrepair after the dissolution. It's still an amazing and substantial ruin. Plus it was the first time I got to use my English Heritage card. It wasn't the fact that I got in for free and saved £4.80, I just felt like a SPECIAL HISTORY PERSON.









Holy Island itself is reachable by a causeway which is covered by the tide for six hours out of every 12, so I got lucky to reach it during one of the dry periods. It's a bit different to going to Mersea Island, you can get dangerously stuck there (there are warning sites everywhere). Despite being only 12 miles south of the Scottish border, Holy Island village seems very English, although it's still a bit weird, clearly put together for the Abbey tourism without being too tacky.