St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street

St Mary and St Cuthbert stands in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, on the site of a Roman fort called Concangis. The church has served worshippers for more than eleven centuries, with parts of the present building over nine hundred and fifty years old. It began as a wooden shrine for the relics of St Cuthbert, brought here in 883 after Viking raids drove monks from Lindisfarne. For the next 112 years it also served as the cathedral for a diocese stretching from Teesside to Lothian. Kings Æthelstan and Edmund visited, leaving gifts for the community and its treasures. The church holds deep significance in early English Christianity. Between 947 and 968, Aldred translated the Gospels from Latin into Old English here, creating the oldest surviving English version. The Lindisfarne Gospels and St Cuthbert’s coffin remained until 995, when renewed raids forced the monks to move on to Durham. The wooden church gave way to stone in the mid-11th century, with the oldest surviving parts dating to 1056. Roman stone reused in later walls still shows Lewis holes where lifting tackle was fixed. Inside, the nave contains two large pillars from the 11th-century church and a 15th-century spire of 158 feet. The Ankers House Museum occupies the former anchorage where six anchorites lived until 1547. Along the north wall lie the Lumley family effigies, added in 1595. A Lambton family pew from 1829 sits above a vault, reached by an external staircase. The church’s 1883 screen and reredos by the Nicholson brothers recall its thousand-year history.