Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey

Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey stands in Northumberland as the remains of two linked Benedictine monasteries founded in the 7th century. St Peter’s at Monkwearmouth rose on the River Wear in 674, and St Paul’s at Jarrow on the River Tyne ten years later. Both sites became centres of learning under Benedict Biscop, who brought craftsmen from Francia to build in stone and make glass windows. The abbey produced the Codex Amiatinus, the oldest surviving complete Vulgate Bible, sent to the Pope in 716. Its most famous scholar, Bede, wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the English People while living at Jarrow. The abbey’s influence lasted until Viking raids in the late 8th and 9th centuries forced its abandonment. After the Norman Conquest a brief revival began in the 11th century, and in the 14th the houses were refounded as small cells of Durham Priory. Henry VIII dissolved them in 1536, yet the two abbey churches survived as parish churches. St Peter’s at Monkwearmouth and St Paul’s at Jarrow still stand today, each with Anglo-Saxon fabric in their towers and naves. Visitors find St Peter’s Church at Monkwearmouth beside the Wear, its tower showing phases from the 7th to 10th centuries. The church contains fragments of the original priory and stands next to the university campus. At Jarrow, St Paul’s Church holds further remains of the monastery ruins in its churchyard. Both sites are scheduled monuments and Grade I listed, marking their place as the cradle of English literature and art.