Pilgrims follow the final journey of St Cuthbert

Mar 21 2008 by Neil Mckay, The Journal

FIFTY faithful pilgrims walked the path of St Cuthbert’s final journey yesterday, to celebrate the patron saint of Northumbria’s feast day.

For the seventh year, members of the Northumbrian Association and their followers walked the seven miles from St Cuthbert’s Church in Chester-le-Street to Palace Green, in front of Durham Cathedral, where Northumbria’s patron saint is entombed.

They stopped, symbolically, outside Durham University library on Palace Green, where they hope the priceless Lindisfarne Gospels will one day be stored.

Although staff at the British Library in London remain resolutely opposed to the Gospels leaving its St Pancras base, an increasingly powerful lobby is backing their transfer to Durham, in a specially built branch of the British Library. Supporters of such a proposal include the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who on a visit to Durham earlier this year told The Journal: “It would be wonderful if the Gospels were returned to their spiritual home, their historical home alongside St Cuthbert, who is buried in this cathedral.”

The Gospels, an illuminated Latin text of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were produced on Lindisfarne in Northumbria in the late 7th Century or early 8th Century

Yesterday Mike Tickell, chairman of the Northumbrian Society, said: “The campaign is gaining momentum.

“People are beginning to realise that the Gospels, and the north’s Christian heritage, do not only have cultural and educational significance, but could also be financially significant in terms of attracting tourism.” Talks are currently under way between the Northumbrian Association and Durham County Council in an effort to attract more walkers on to the route completed by members yesterday, by improving footpaths and introducing new signposts and leaflets along the seven-mile stretch to make it more accessible.

The route, known as “Cuddy’s Corse”, is said to have been St Cuthbert’s “final journey” when monks carried his coffin from a spot close to St Cuthbert’s Church in Chester-le-Street to his final resting place, in what is now Durham Cathedral, in 995AD.

A Durham County Council spokeswoman said its access and rights of way officer, Kevin Telford, has been working with the association, surveying and identifying improvements to footpaths and bridleways that form part of Cuddy’s Corse.

A 50% grant towards the cost of the Northumbrian Association’s first self-guided walk leaflet has been awarded by the county council’s parish paths partnership.