Island 16: Lindisfarne / Holy Island

This visit came as an opportune extension to a trip up to the North East for work. And this is the first of my forty that I’ve previously visited.

I was lucky to watch the rain dissipate as I headed up the A1, the afternoon turning into a golden sunlit summer evening. Lindisfarne is an attractive island whatever the weather, but in the low evening sun it really takes on an extraordinary gleam. This being an evening visit, I was only amongst a small number of visitors who had journeyed across the threshold of the low causeway onto the island. It’s difficult to unravel whether Celtic Christianity and early monasticism shaped the landscape more than the landscape moulded the temperament of the Saints who sought to isolate themselves here in lives dedicated to contemplation.