St Aidan's Church, Bamburgh

St Aidan's Parish Church is found in the attractive Northumberland village of Bamburgh, which is better known for its gigantic castle. Christian worship has taken place on this site, if not within these very walls, since the seventh century. It is connected to St Aidan, the Irish saint of Lindisfarne fame who attempted to re-Christianise the island after the paganism of the Angles and Saxons effectively destroyed the first evangelisation under late Roman rule. He is said to have died on this spot, and a modern shrine has been constructed to commemorate him. An Irishman who had connections to Scotland and then spent his career attempting to convert the English of Northumbria, he may embody the spirit of the United Kingdom, which those places eventually became.  

Another notable association is the tomb of Grace Darling, a nineteenth-century lighthouse keeper’s daughter. On a dark, windy night in September, 1838, she and her father attempted the rescue of the crew and passengers of the beleaguered paddle steamer Forfarshire, with some success and much heroism. She died herself four years later of tuberculosis, tended by the Duchess of Northumberland and known to Queen Victoria; she had become a national heroine. The effigy is movingly beautiful, and many visitors observe the custom of leaving a seashell upon it.

The Darlings’ rowing boat was a welcome sight to those dying men and one woman clinging to the rocks of the North Sea, and Aidan’s message of peace with God through Jesus Christ was of equal significance to those who received it. Truly, all who share the gospel are part of God’s great rescue operation; the seas are rough, the darkness deep, the night cruel, but the gospel’s sweet call a vial of light and hope.