This month we will be journeying north to Hexham Abbey and the Roman Fort of Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall. In the morning we will visit Hexham Abbey, one of the earliest seats of Christianity in England. There has been a church on the site since AD674 when Queen Etheldreda granted land in Hexham to Wilfrid, Bishop of York. Remarkably, the original C7th Saxon crypt still survives and can be accessed via a narrow staircase. Wilfrid established a Benedictine Abbey, which became one of the most prosperous in England. Superseded by the Augustinian Order in the C11th, the priory church, built between 1170 and 1250, still survives today. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537, the church continued as the parish church for Hexham and remains today as a centre for community worship.

In the afternoon we will visit the Roman Fort of Vindolanda, which was an important Roman base during the time of the construction of Hadrian’s Wall. Dating from between the late 70s and mid 80s, this site continued to be occupied long after the Romans left Britain. It was finally abandoned in the C9th. Archaeological excavations have yielded some of the most exciting discoveries from Roman times. These include thousands of artefacts such as shoes, textiles, wooden goods and, most importantly, writing tablets. Writing tablets were small postcard sized pieces of wood, which were covered with writing. They are some of the earliest examples of written material from Western Europe. The tablets reveal Roman life in all its glory; demands for beer, invites to parties, requests for holidays and even rude names for the Britons.