St Cuthbert’s Way Trip – Day 5 (Summary – Part 1)

St. Cuthbert’s Way – Resources and Index

Our final day of walking was to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, a six mile walk from our accommodation in Lowick. This has been a long day, full of more adventure, so I’ll have to split the post. It also adds anticipation…. (well, not much to be fair)

The village of Lowick just over 100 years ago at a time when it had more pubs and churches, including the White Swan Inn.

Breakfast was in the pub where we were staying, the White Swan Inn. It wasn’t an ideal start, my first attempt of getting cereals this week was having Rice Krispies, but they tasted stale. I checked and they were several months of date, so that annoyed me, another great start to the day. We were though distracted by the excitement that Gordon had broken the blind in his bedroom in what Bev called a rock star style tantrum of trashing his room. I’m not sure Gordon is capable of that.

The full English breakfast. The sausages were bloody dreadful, although everything else was fine. This is fast becoming one of the most critical weeks of food comments that I’ve done, I’m sounding ever more like Bev (probably good that I don’t order scrambled egg). Anyway, back to positivity, the staff were friendly, the room was clean and I had an excellent night’s sleep. So, all was well (other than the out of date cereals and the sausages). Incidentally, I tell the staff member that the cereals were out of date, but I think she thought that I was an idiot (and she’s not far wrong to be fair).

We were aware that we had to be careful with time as we had to cross the water to the Holy Island without getting swept away (although more of that debacle later). It meant three miles back along the road that we had walked on the previous evening, but it seemed to go quickly. That was likely because I was having an intellectual discussion with Gordon about life.

This is St. Nicholas’s Church in Kyloe, but it has been deconsecrated and turned into a private residence. Like many churches around here it was reconstructed in the late eighteenth century, extended in the late nineteenth century and shut in the late twentieth century. In fairness though to the Church of England, there really isn’t a very large population in the area to build a congregation from so there’s not much that they could likely have done.

We made out way back into Fenwick, with the rest of the group ahead whilst Gordon and I gossiped at the back. We also started to get our first views of the Holy Island, something that the rain had obscured on the previous evening.

The Fenwick Granary farm buildings which are in a state of considerable decline over just a few years. There’s a planning application here to convert these farm buildings into residential use, but it has so far been rejected.

The walk continued towards the sea.

Here’s Gordon striding along, very keen to see the end of the walk at this stage with his wonky feet.

The big open skies.

Some lovely lambs, with Gordon trying to take a similar photo before realising they had all turned round. He didn’t want to take a photo at that point in case people thought he was strange.

The East Coast Main Line which goes from London to Edinburgh. Before anyone comments, I didn’t stand and faff about taking a photo here, I took it whilst walking across.

I waited for Gordon, like the true gentleman I am, in case he fell over and needed assistance.

It’s not clear whether the signalman actually wants people to keep calling.

If there had of been a bull in the field then I would have gone across to the cut arable headland. Fortunately, there was no bull.

These are military installations to protect the coastline from German attack during the Second World War.

Where the gun would have been located and this marked the start of our walk over to the Holy Island. What could possibly go wrong?