under this Creative Commons Licence.
Bellingham, now a parish in its own right, was once an
ancient chapelry of ‘The Great Parish’ of Simonburn (see here).
It has therefore had its own place of worship, St.Cuthbert’s Church, for a very
long time indeed, with roots going back to Dark Age Northumbria. And the old
church is, for many reasons, a very interesting place…
(1) Firstly,
of course, on account of its very name, the spot is supposed to have been one
of the resting places for St. Cuthbert’s body and the fleeing monks of
Lindisfarne in the 9th century;
(2) Secondly,
there is the church’s strange construction. Possibly uniquely in England,
Bellingham has a heavy vaulted stone roof. Externally, this is evidenced by the
use of massive stone slabs as slates, and internally by a hefty barrel-like
construction. It wasn’t always like this, though. For centuries it had a
standard timber roof, but this was replaced with the present effort in the
early 17th century when the locals tired of its repeated torching by
those pesky Scots (see point 4 for one such instance);
(3) Then,
in the churchyard, you will find an odd-shaped, pillow-like tombstone labelled
‘The Lang Pack.’ This is supposedly the final resting place of the victim of an
infamous tale of Northumbrian folklore, when a man hiding in a ‘Lang (Long)
Pack’ was killed by a manservant of nearby Lee Hall whilst trying to gain
illegal entry to the same in 1723. No one quite knows what to make of either
the story or the grave-marker;
(4) Next
there is the display case inside the church containing cannon balls. The label
tells us that they were found in the roof when the stone slabs were relaid in
1861 – and were probably launched into their location during the 1597 artillery
raid by the Duke of Buccleuch.
Interesting place, then.
It would be remiss of me not to bring to your attention Northernvicar’sblog entry on the topic, which has a few more pictures for your visual
consumption.
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