GARY BILTCLIFFE & CAROLINE HOARE, OUR GUIDES FOR THE WEEKEND
DOWSE THE TWO RECENTLY DISCOVERED DRAGON ENERGY LINES ON THE ISLAND.
SUITABLE FOR ALL DOWSERS AND BEGINNERS
Join members of Ridings Dowsers for a DOWSING IN THE great weekend of dowsing on CASTLE AND PRIORY
Lindisfarne Island PRIOR TO THE WEEKEND, JOIN US AT A weekend dowsing the sacred sites of the Island. 7PM FRIDAY NIGHT Visiting the well-known Lindisfarne castle, the FOR DINNER Hermitage and the Lindisfarne Priory.
LINDISFARNE, OR HOLY ISLE, WAS THE Weekend 25 & 26 CRADLE OF CHRISTIANITY IN ANGLO- SAXON TIMES FOUNDED BY SAINT AIDEN OF IONA. June 2016. THIS CAUSEWAY ISLAND WAS ALSO THE HOME OF ST CUTHBERT AND IS STILL A Further information from: PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE TODAY. Join friends, old and new, on this wonderful Bill Holding. 01653 618652. www.ridingsdowsers.co.uk
dowsing weekend.
GENERAL NOTES ABOUT THE WEEKEND
Friday Evening. 24th June.
We are having dinner at the Castle Hotel. 7 to 7.30pm. The Castle Hotel. 103 Castlegate, Berwick-Upon-Tweed. TD15 1LF. 01289 307 900.
If you want to join us inform Bill Holding. (See Contact Details)
Contact Details.
If you need to get in contact with one of the Ridings Dowsers Committee members from Friday to Sunday, use the following details;
Bill Holding; 07936 407 690. [email protected] Mike Barwell; 07860 459 650. [email protected] Sally Lane; 07720 458 612. [email protected]
Saturday Evening Social. 25th June.
We will be having a get-together for dinner in The Castle Hotel. 103 Castlegate, Berwick-Up-on-Tweed. TD15 1LF. 01289 307 900. Have a good natter about the day’s activities and anything else that comes to mind. I will be asking for names of people that want to join us for the evening meal first thing Saturday morning.
Meeting Venue’s
To ensure we all meet at the right place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, details will be on the Weekend Agenda.
Tide Times.
Please observe the tide times when coming and going to Lindisfarne Island. Details available on the website. Saturday; safe to cross; 10am to 17.10. Sunday; safe to cross; 10.35 to 18.00.
Refreshments and Food
During the trips around the Island there are several places to stop for food and drinks, or take a picnic lunch.
Ground Conditions
Generally walking around the area is quite good and requires normal footwear, but when walking to other parts of the Island, stronger and wet resistant footwear would be advisable.
Lindisfarne Weekend Agenda
Friday
14.00 to 17.00 A walk around the historic town of Alnwick taking in the sights and sounds of this interesting place. 19.00 For 19.30 Evening dinner at The Castle Hotel. (See General Notes)
Saturday Meet at Lindisfarne Car Park on the Island.
10.10 to 10.30 Park your car in the main parking area and meet at a point near the shuttle bus service stop.
11.15 to 13.00 Orientation and dowsing around Lindisfarne Priory.
13.00 to 14.00 Picnic Lunch. (Please supply your own.)
14.00 to 15.30 Move to Lindisfarne Castle. Dowsing around and in the grounds.
16.00 Return to the car park and depart from the Island, before 5pm.
19.00 Meet at The Castle Hotel (See General Notes) for Evening dinner.
Lindisfarne Weekend Agenda (Continued)
Sunday
10.35 to 10.30 Park your car in the main parking area and meet at the point near the shuttle bus service stop again.
10.50 to 13.00 Briefing by Gary Biltcliffe and Caroline Hoare about their recent discovery of energy lines that come into the Island. Dowse them across the Island under Gary’s guidance.
13.00 to 14.00 Picnic Lunch. (Please supply your own.)
14.00 to 15.30 Continue dowsing with Gary and Caroline.
15.45 Return to the car park, debrief and close the weekend.
Accommodation Lindisfarne
You are responsible for booking your accommodation for the weekend. Below is a list of suggested places which have been selected off the internet. I cannot guarantee their status so check them out when booking!
Greycroft B&B Fenham Farm Bed and Breakfast Croft Pl Fenham Farm Alnwick, Northumberland NE66 1XU Beal 01665 602127 Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland TD15 2PL 01289 381245
Oronsay House Bed and Breakfast Bamburgh View. B&B 18 Bondgate Without Fenkle St Alnwick, Northumberland NE66 1PP Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland TD15 2SR 01665 603175 01289 38921
Tate House Bed and Breakfast Lindisfarne Inn 11 Bondgate Without Berwick-upon-Tweed Alnwick, Northumberland NE66 1PR Beal, Berwickshire TD15 2PD 01665 604661 01289 381223
The Old Mill B&B 8 South Rd Travelodge Hotel - Berwick upon Tweed Wooler, Northumberland NE71 6NL North Rd 01668 283349 Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland TD15 1UQ 0871 984 6279 Budle Hall Budle Hall Queens Head Hotel Bamburgh, Northumberland NE69 7AJ 25 Market St 01668 214297 Alnwick, Northumberland NE66 1SS 01665 604691
History of the Island
Anciently the island was known to the native Britons in late Celtic times as Medcaut or in Latin as Insula Medicata. The old name is thought to derive from the Latin meaning 'healing island', perhaps from medicinal herbs that grew there or maybe from an allusion to the healing nature of the receding tide which bridges the gap with the mainland. The name Welsh name Medcaut (or Medgoet in Irish) was older than the name Lindisfarne and may have come into use due to Roman influence.
Although suggestions have linked the Anglo-Saxon name 'Lindisfarne' to some kind of stream, historians and place-name experts consider that the name is in some way linked to a people called the Lindissi of Lincolnshire. When the Angles (from the German/Danish/Frisian coast) invaded Britain in the 6th century the area around the River Humber was a major area for their earliest settlement. The people who settled on both sides of the estuary were known as the Humbresnes and a tribal group on the south side in Lincolnshire were called the Lindisfarona.
It is possible that the new invaders from that region also moved north along the coast and colonised the island of Medcaut as it would have provided an ideal landing base for an invasion of the Celtic mainland. It is known for sure that an Angle chief Ida seized the nearby Celtic stronghold of Bamburgh in 547AD and that later, Ida's son Theodoric (whose name means king-king) was attacked in a siege upon the island. The three-day siege was led by Urien the Celtic Prince of the Cumbrian-based Kingdom of Rheged. Urien was the principal leader in the defence of the Celtic north against the Angles.
In the end the Angles would be successful in their invasion and colonisation of the north establishing a kingdom called Bernicia in this part of the region based on an earlier Celtic kingdom of a similar name. The Pagan Angles along with the Saxons who colonised the south of England would eventually convert to Christianity. In the north the Angle Kingdom of Northumbria developed and became a major centre of Christianity and Lindisfarne was a major focus for the new belief.
A CRADLE OF CHRISTIANITY The ruins of Lindisfarne's Norman priory stand on or near the site of the Anglo-Saxon monastery founded by St Aidan in A.D 635, on land granted by Oswald, King and Saint of Northumbria. Aidan is believed to have chosen the island site because of its isolation and proximity to the Northumbrian capital at Bamburgh.
Aidan the first Bishop of Lindisfarne, an Irish-Celtic monk from the Scotish isle of Iona, travelled widely throughout Northumbria and with the help of King Oswald as interpreter, began the conversion of the pagan Northumbrians to Chrisatianity. The conversion of the Northumbrians to Christianity by Aidan and Oswald, cannot have been an easy task.
The Northumbrians were the descendants of a heathen race of people who were in many ways no more civilised than the Scandinavian Vikings, who invaded Britain centuries later. St Aidan's death in 651 A.D, is said to have been related in a vision to a young shepherd boy called Cuthbert who lived in the hills somewhere near the River Tweed.
The church, Holy Island: David Simpson The vision convinced Cuthbert that he should take up the life of a monk and at the age of sixteen, he entered the Northumbrian monastery of Melrose in Tweeddale (now in the southern borders of Scotland). In 654 Cuthbert came to Lindisfarne, where his reputed gift of healing and legendary ability to work miracles, achieved far reaching fame for the island. Cuthbert was elected Bishop of Hexham in 684 A.D but exchanged the see for Lindisfarne, to become the fifth successor to Bishop Aidan. When Cuthbert died in 687 A.D, he was buried in accordance with his wishes on the island of Lindisfarne, but eleven years after his death, his body was found to be in an incorrupt state by the astonished monks of the island. The monks were now convinced that Cuthbert was a saint and pilgrims continued to flock to Lindisfarne in numbers as great as during Cuthbert's lifetime.
Ruins of the Norman priory, Lindisfarne: David Simpson VIKING RAIDS ON LINDISFARNE
In 793 A.D Lindisfarne was to witness the first Viking raid on the coast of Britain, which was recalled with much drama by an informative record of the period called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; " 793. In this year terrible portents appeared over Northumbria, which sorely affrighted the inhabitants: there were exceptional flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying through the air. A great famine followed hard upon these signs; and a little later in that same year, on the 8th June, the harrying of the heathen miserably destroyed God's church by rapine and slaughter. "
It was a horrific and devastating moment for Northumbria but the Anglo-Saxon chroniclers were largely responsible for giving the Vikings the 'bad press' that they still have today. The chroniclers did not mention that the Anglo-Saxons had invaded Britain in much the same way, two and a half centuries earlier.
Viking raids on Lindisfarne's wealthy coastal monastery continued throughout the following century and in 875 A.D the monks of Lindisfarne fled their Holy Island with the body of Cuthbert, remembering the dying wishes of their saint;- "....if necessity compels you to choose between one of two evils, I would much rather you take my bones from their tomb and carry them away with you to whatever place of rest God may decree, rather than consent to iniquity and put your necks under the yokes of schismatics" For many years the monks wandered the north of England, with the coffin of St Cuthbert, and after settling for just over a hundred years in the old Roman fort at Chester-Le-Street they moved on to Durham in 995 A.D where St Cuthbert's body lies to this day in the cathedral that was built for his shrine.
Hobthrush or St Cuthbert's Isle viewed from Lindisfarne: David Simpson
HOBTHRUSH AND ST CUTHBERT'S BEADS Just offshore from Holy Island village, is the small Island of Hobthrush, or St Cuthbert's Isle, where the saint was said to have crafted the legendary beads described by Sir Walter Scott in Marmion. But fain St Hilda's nuns would learn If on a rock by Lindisfarne St Cuthbert sits and toils to frame The sea borne beads that bear his name. Such tales had Whitby's fishers told, And said they might his shape behold, And here his anvil sound: A deadened clang - a huge dim form Seen but and heart when gathering storm And night were closing round. But this, a tale of idle fame, The nuns of Lindisfarne disclaim.
Cuthbert's or `Cuddy's Beads' can still sometimes be seen washed up on the shores of Holy Island. They are in fact the fossilized remains of tiny sea creatures of the Crinoid type, which inhabited the ocean depths in prehistoric times. Supposedly resembling the shape of the cross, they were once used as Rosary beads.
Lindisfarne
Ridings Dowsers – Lindisfarne 2016 Friday 24th, Saturday 25th, Sunday 26th June 2016.
First Name: Guest’s First Name:
Surname: Surname
Address:
E-Mail. Tel’ (in case of emergency)
Total Amount Enclosed: ……………………………………………………… £ Please make Cheque payable to Ridings Dowsers. May we acknowledge your booking via E-Mail? Postal acknowledgement, please include a stamped and addressed envelope. Accommodation, please see separate details listed above.
PRICES:
RD Member Weekend Pass …………………………………………………… £15
RD Member One Day Pass …………………………………………………… £10
Non Member or Guest Weekend Pass ……………………………………… £25
Non Member or Guest One Day Pass ……………………………………… £18
Pass includes tea/coffee/biscuits during the breaks.
Please return the completed form, with full payment to:
Ridings Dowsers, The Cottage, Whitwell on the Hill, York, YO60 7JJ.
Cancellations: Up to one month prior to event – 90% refund. One month to one week prior to event – 50% refund. Within one week – no refund. Any questions regarding the weekend please call Bill Holding 01653 618652.