We went to Jarrow one chilly but sunny morning to visit St Paul’s Church with is the site of the former St Paul and St Peter Monasteries where the Venerable Bede grew up and worked as a Benedictine monk his entire life. He is famous for writing the history of England, thereby becoming England’s first historian, and he also spent a lot of time figuring out the age of the world, Jesus and the date for Easter. He is now buried at the Durham Cathedral, as my prior post on the Cathedral explains. Jarrow is also one of the places that our Pilgrimage guide Bishop John served.

We had a lovely guide for our tour with many stories about the church, monastery and Bede and he even let us wring the church bells, which was excellent fun.