HEXHAM ABBEY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 30, 4 August 1923, Page 14

HEXHAM ABBEY

HISTORIC ENGLISH MONASTERY

Nearly 1250 years ago St. Wilfrid founded a monastery and built a church at Hexham, on the banks of tho Tyne, on a piece of land given to him by Queen Etheldrede. The church was one of the largest and most beautiful in England at that period; it was succeeded by one of tho most magnificent abbeys, and today there is a He.xham Abbey, for the restoration and repair of which an appeal, is now being made. These are hard times, with the income tax at four shillings and sixpence in the pound, and the cost of living far above the pre-war level. Yet we cannot think that the appeal will fall unheeded, says the, London correspondent of tho "Christian Science Monitor," or that any abbey which has been called "thu text-book of Early English architecture" will be suffered to fall into further decay. Eminent architects who have examined the building state that the matter is one that brooks no further delay.

Of St. Wilfrid's seventh century church the foundations of the apse, fragments of the nave, and the crypt c;r "confessio" survive. The importance of the original building may be gathered from the. fact • that Hexham was made a see dependent on York, with its own bishop, and that the church became a cathedral, with the right cf sanctuary. The old stone "Frithstool,'' or "seat of peace," the goal to which the fugitive criminal fled that he mightobtain the protection of the church, still remains.

In course of time Scandinavian marauders destroyed the cathedral, leaving only a battered shell. Then, in course of further time, the Archbishop of York in 1113 founded here a priory of Augustinian canons, and Hexham once again rose to a state of strength and magnificence. To these canons is due the erection, between 1175 and 1225, of the beautiful choir and transept that still exist, Then came the marauding Scots, tearing down the valley of the Tyne, burning or otherwise destroying all before them. Hexham, with its library and monuments, mid overygthing that could be burned, fell a prey to their ferocity. Yet once again the abbey held up its head, and became so strong as to make brave resistance to the commissioners of Henry VIII., who came to demand its surrender. The canons, armed with bows and artillery, stood on the roof and said: "We be XXti brethren in this hous, and we shall dye all or yt shall ye have this hous." Yet they had to give way and the end cf the Prior was at Tyburn.