St Aidan’s Church, Bamburgh: A Medieval Parish Church on an Early Christian Site
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Anglo-Saxon, British, English
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page9 sections
History
Early Christian origins
St Aidan’s Church, Bamburgh is a Church of England church in the United Kingdom, standing outside Bamburgh Castle on a site associated with an early Christian foundation. St Aidan, a seventh-century Irish missionary and bishop who helped establish Christianity in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, is said by the Northumbrian monk and historian Bede to have built a wooden church here in AD 635. Bede also states that Aidan died at the church in AD 652. A wooden beam preserved inside the building is traditionally identified as the beam on which he rested while dying.
Medieval church and parish foundation
The present church was built in the late 12th century, with some earlier stonework surviving in the north aisle. A chancel was added in 1230. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the suppression of religious houses and seizure of their property under Henry VIII during the 1530s and 1540s, the monks were forced to leave. The 16th-century Reformation then established the Church of England apart from papal authority, and St Aidan’s became Bamburgh’s parish church. Its upkeep was neglected, leaving the building in poor condition by 1600.
Repair, restoration, and continuing use
Repairs were eventually completed, and further work took place over later centuries. Major restorations in the 19th century culminated in a final restoration in 1895. The church is a Grade I listed Church of England building in the Diocese of Newcastle, within the Archdeaconry of Lindisfarne and the Bamburgh and Glendale Deanery.
Remains
Medieval fabric and chancel
The church stands beyond Bamburgh Castle’s wall and retains pre-Conquest stonework in its north aisle, incorporated into the later medieval building. The main structure dates from the late 12th century, while the chancel added in 1230 extends for 60 feet. It is said to be the second longest chancel in the country. At its east end is a Caen-stone reredos, an ornamental screen behind the altar, made by W. S. Hicks in 1895. The pale limestone comes from quarries around Caen in Normandy, and the reredos depicts northern saints of the seventh and eighth centuries.
Memorials and carved monuments
A 14th-century tomb recess contains the effigy of a knight. Wall monuments commemorate Sir Claudius Forster and members of the Forster family, including William Forster and Ferdinando Forster, whose monument is dated 1711. The church also contains the Sharpe memorial of 1839 by Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey, a brass plaque to the historian Arthur Lionel Smith, and a memorial to Major General George Younghusband.
The north aisle contains an effigy of Grace Darling dating from 1844 by Charles Raymond Smith. Darling, a lighthouse keeper’s daughter, was celebrated for helping rescue survivors of the wrecked steamship Forfarshire in 1838. The effigy originally formed part of her churchyard monument, designed by Anthony Salvin and Charles Raymond Smith in 1844. That memorial was positioned so passing ships could see it, and the stonework was later replaced after it deteriorated.
Crypt burials and churchyard memorials
Between 1998 and 2007, work associated with the site revealed the remains of 110 people who had died in the seventh and eighth centuries. They had originally been buried in the Bowl Hole graveyard at Bamburgh Castle and were transferred to the church crypt in 2016. The crypt includes an interpretive display and a digital ossuary, while the wooden beam traditionally linked with St Aidan’s death remains preserved within the church. The churchyard contains one Commonwealth war grave commemorating an airman who died during the Second World War.
Organ
The church had a two-manual pipe organ made by Harrison and Harrison in 1883.
