Tynemouth Castle and Priory: A Medieval Monastery and Royal Fortress
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Iron Age, Classical, Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- British, English, Norman, Roman
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page16 sections
History
Tynemouth Castle and Priory is a medieval monastic and royal fortification in the United Kingdom, occupying a promontory at the mouth of the River Tyne. Its history began before the medieval priory, with occupation by the late Iron Age Votadini and later activity during the Roman period. The monastery was probably founded by an Anglian king of Northumbria in the seventh century, and the church was rebuilt in the early Gothic period before the site acquired further walls, towers, artillery works, and coastal-defence structures.
Early occupation and the Northumbrian monastery
The earliest known occupation consisted of two circular wooden houses. The larger belonged to the late Iron Age Votadini, a Brittonic people associated with southeastern Scotland and northeastern Britain, and stood about two centuries before the Roman invasion of AD 43. A smaller circular house was built during the second century, in the Roman period. Later finds include Roman stones, although these stones alone do not establish that a Roman settlement existed at Tynemouth.
Medieval tradition places the foundation of the monastery in the middle of the seventh century. According to this tradition, Oswine, king of Deira, was buried at Tynemouth by Oswiu, king of Bernicia, who had killed him and performed the burial as an act of penance. Bede, the Northumbrian monk and historian, referred to the site as an abbey. Tynemouth subsequently became a royal burial place. Oswine was the first king buried there, Osred II had been buried there by 792, and Malcolm III of Scotland was buried at Tynemouth after his death at the Battle of Alnwick in 1093. Malcolm’s son Alexander I later arranged for his body to be reburied at Dunfermline Abbey.
The monastery suffered repeated attacks by Vikings or Danes during the ninth century. Raids traditionally associated with the site took place in 800, 832, 865, and 870, followed by its destruction in 875 by forces under Halfdan Ragnarsson. The destruction also affected Jarrow. One tradition holds that nuns from the community of St Hilda, who had taken refuge at Tynemouth, were killed during these events.
Refoundation and the growth of the priory
A towered parish church dedicated to St Mary stood at Tynemouth by the middle of the eleventh century. It was associated with a chaplain of Tostig, Earl of Northumbria, but was destroyed during William the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North, the campaign that devastated parts of northern England after the Norman Conquest.
In 1065, a body believed to be that of St Oswine was exhumed from the ruined monastery. The community was refounded in 1083 by Turchil, a monk from Benedictine Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, which was a dependent house of Durham Priory. In 1090, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, granted his lands around Tynemouth to St Albans Abbey. This created a prolonged jurisdictional dispute between Durham and St Albans. The Benedictine Order was a Western Christian monastic order governed by the Rule of Saint Benedict, while a daughter cell was a dependent monastery under a larger religious house.
Construction of a new church began soon after the grant. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St Oswine, it housed the saint’s shrine, which became a centre of pilgrimage. On 20 August 1110, the shrine was ceremonially transferred from Jarrow to Tynemouth. The east end of the new church had been completed while work on the nave continued.
Fire destroyed the thatched dormitory, refectory, and guesthouse in 1150. The dispute with Durham ended in 1174, when Tynemouth remained a daughter cell of St Albans Abbey. Richard I confirmed its rights, privileges, and extensive lands in 1189, creating the Liberty of Tynemouth, also known as Tynemouthshire. This territorial jurisdiction allowed the priory to exercise rights and derive income from land, rents, agricultural produce, and coal.
That income supported extensive rebuilding between 1190 and 1260. During the early thirteenth century, the prior also developed North Shields as the priory’s port. Competition with Newcastle over trade in coal, wool, and fish led to conflict. Newcastle forces destroyed the fishing village in 1270. Edward I suspended Tynemouth’s trade and revoked the Liberty in 1290, but restored both after visiting the fortified priory during the Scottish invasion of 1296.
Other religious possessions strengthened the priory’s estate. Queen Matilda gave Holy Trinity Church at Old Bewick to Tynemouth in 1105. In the early sixteenth century, Thomas Wolsey granted the priory independence from St Albans. That independence lasted only briefly, because Tynemouth was suppressed in January 1539 during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. The king took possession of its lands, and the shrine of St Oswine was destroyed.
Medieval defence and royal occupation
Tynemouth’s defensive role developed alongside its religious importance. In 1095, Robert de Mowbray and about thirty followers took refuge there after rebelling against William II. Their resistance lasted six days before they were captured, suggesting that the monastery already had defensive works, possibly a motte-and-bailey, a fortification formed from an earthen mound and an adjoining enclosed yard.
When Edward I invaded Scotland in 1296, the prior received a royal licence to crenellate the monastery, allowing it to be strengthened with battlements. Tynemouth Castle was defended against Robert the Bruce after his victory at Bannockburn in 1314 by a garrison of eighty men-at-arms. Edward II and his favourite Piers Gaveston took refuge there in 1312 before escaping by sea to Scarborough Castle. Adam FitzRoy, Edward II’s illegitimate son, died on 18 September 1322 while accompanying his father in Scotland and was buried at Tynemouth on 30 September.
In February 1390, Richard II, John of Gaunt, and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, contributed to the castle’s defences. Construction of the gatehouse then began and was completed by the early fifteenth century. St Albans also sent monks who resisted discipline to Tynemouth as punishment from the thirteenth century onward. The Lady Chapel was described as new in 1336, and the Percy Chapel was added in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Royal fortification and the lighthouse
The castle remained in royal hands after the priory’s suppression because of its strategic position at the mouth of the Tyne. From 1545, its medieval defences were adapted for artillery on the advice of Sir Richard Lee and the Italian engineers Gian Tommaso Scala and Antonio da Bergamo. Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, was born at the castle in 1564 while his father, the 8th Earl, served as its guardian.
Tynemouth also played a part in a dramatic court-related arrest. In 1594, George Selby and Thomas Power, the castle’s lieutenant, captured Jacob Kroger, a German goldsmith, and Guillaume Martyn, a French stableman, after they fled the court of Anne of Denmark with stolen jewels. Power held them at Tynemouth for five weeks before they were returned to Edinburgh, where they were summarily tried and executed.
William Selby became keeper of the castle in December 1606, succeeding Sir Henry Widdrington. An inventory listed muskets and halberds in the great chamber and armoury, including weapons claimed for the Earl of Northumberland. Selby reported that the lodging was uninhabitable and that the guns were not mounted. His responsibilities included maintaining a navigational light.
A coal-fired light operated for an uncertain period from a turret at the east end of the priory church. The arrangement was in place by 1582, and the castle governor was responsible for its maintenance and received dues from passing ships. After the turret stairs collapsed in 1559, the light could no longer be lit. Colonel Villiers built a separate lighthouse within the castle walls in 1665, using stone from the priory. It was rebuilt in 1775, received an oil-fired Argand light in 1802, and was sold to Trinity House, London, in 1841. The light changed from revolving white to revolving red in 1871, continued until 1898, and was then replaced by St Mary’s Lighthouse before the old structure was demolished.
Military use and modern preservation
The castle became a barracks in the late nineteenth century. After a fire, the Office of Works took control in 1930 and removed many later additions. During the Second World War, it served as a coastal-defence installation covering the mouth of the Tyne and suffered heavy air raids in 1941. The army left in 1956, after which restored sections of the coastal defences were opened to the public.
A coastguard station built on the site in 1980 and opened by Prince Charles closed in 2001. Tynemouth Castle and Priory is now managed by English Heritage. The priory is a scheduled monument, and the site’s three royal burials are commemorated by the three crowns in the arms of North Tyneside.
Remains
The surviving complex occupies a headland with steep cliffs and the sea on all but its landward side. A curtain wall, meaning a large enclosing defensive wall joining towers or other strongpoints, crossed the neck of the promontory on an earth embankment. Parts of that embankment may preserve elements of Norman defences or the earlier Iron Age settlement. A medieval description emphasized the narrow approach through a gate cut into the rock, exposure to sea frets and storms, frequent shipwrecks, and the difficulty of cultivating fruit trees.
Castle defences
Gatehouse
The gatehouse stands at the centre of the landward embankment. Built from the late fourteenth century and completed in the early fifteenth century, it is the only medieval defensive building at Tynemouth to survive intact. Its position controlled the approach across the neck of the headland and formed part of the wider circuit of walls and towers.
Walls and towers
The original defensive enclosure included a curtain wall and towers. Whitley Tower overlooked King Edward’s Bay, while East Mount Tower faced Prior’s Haven. Stone walls extended defensive works that were already present during the reign of Henry II. The entire medieval circuit was about 3,200 feet, or 975 metres, long. The north and east sections fell into the sea, and most of the south wall was demolished. The west wall and part of the south wall survive in good condition, including an original wall walk.
Artillery works
The medieval walls were modified for artillery from 1545, including the insertion of new gunports. Surviving military features include gun emplacements, a guardroom, and the main armoury. The later military remains also include the Warrant Officer’s house and other gun positions. Late nineteenth-century barracks buildings were added to the castle, although many were removed after the fire and the Office of Works takeover.
Priory church and chapels
Church
The priory church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St Oswine. Its surviving fabric includes the east-end wall and tall, narrow lancet windows with pointed arches, examples of early Gothic architecture. The choir and presbytery, the part of the church reserved for the clergy around the high altar, were completely rebuilt between 1190 and 1260. During the same period, the nave was extended and given a new west front, the refectory windows were repaired, and the chapter house was remodelled.
Lady Chapel
The Lady Chapel was built before 1336 and housed the shrine of St Oswine. The shrine itself was gilded by Baldwin, a goldsmith from St Albans, before its destruction during the Dissolution. The church’s surviving east end and other fragments belong to the later medieval development of the priory rather than its earliest foundation.
Percy Chapel
Added in the middle of the fifteenth century, the Percy Chapel survives intact. It is also known as the Chapel of St Mary. Its interior contains a decorated ceiling with heraldic devices and other symbols, side windows with coloured glass, and a small rose window in the east wall above the altar.
Monastic and archaeological remains
The fire of 1150 destroyed the priory’s thatched dormitory, refectory, and guesthouse. After the Dissolution, the monastic buildings were demolished, although the church and the prior’s house were among the elements reported as remaining. Archaeological remains include traces of five rectangular wooden buildings and fragments of Anglo-Saxon crosses, alongside the two circular wooden houses from the earlier occupation.
The former lighthouse stood within the castle walls on the headland. Its builders reused stone from the abandoned priory in 1665, and the structure was rebuilt in 1775. It was converted to an oil-fired Argand light in 1802, a lamp that used a circular wick and controlled airflow to produce a brighter, steadier flame. The lighthouse was demolished after its replacement by St Mary’s Lighthouse.
