Saxon
Monastery, Hartlepool
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Some 1300 years ago Hartlepool was
one of the most important religious sites in Northern
England.
Our single documentary source for
the Anglo-Saxon monastery at Hartlepool is in
“The Ecclesiastical History of the English
People”, which was written at Jarrow in
731 by the monk Bede. According to Bede the monastery
at Hartlepool was originally founded by the nun
Heiu in the 640’s AD. This monastery was
named “…Heruteu, that is, the island
of the hart”. When Heiu left in the year
649 Bishop Aidan appointed another nun, Hild,
to take over as the head of the monastery. Hild
was the great-niece of King Edwin of Northumbria,
and had become a nun a few years earlier. This
royal connection was reinforced in 655 when King
Oswiu gave his baby daughter Aelfflaed into Hild’s
care. In 657 land was given to Hild to found a
monastery at Whitby, and although she retained
control of Hartlepool, both church and royal attention
moved there with her.
While
“Heruteu” subsequently disappears
from the history books, the lack of historical
records about the monastery is not echoed in the
archaeology of the Headland. Hartlepool is one
of the most extensively explored of the Northumbrian
monasteries of the 7th to 8th Centuries, with
significant finds continuing to be made in the
town today.
The earliest Saxon finds were made
in 1833 during the building of houses between
South Crescent and Prissick Street (“Cross
Close”). The workmen uncovered an Anglo-Saxon
cemetery with burials laid in rows, with the individual
burials north to south. Importantly a number of
inscribed stones marked with personal names and
crosses were also found. These namestones are
similar to others found in Scotland and Ireland
and help to date the cemetery to the 8th Century.
An original namestone found in 1833 is on display
in St Hilda’s Church. During the following
100 years further accidental finds were made in
the same area, although it wasn’t until
the Time Team excavations in 1999 that a scientific
excavation into the site could be carried out.
The complete skeleton found on that occasion was
of a female aged between 25 and 35. Although the
area is popularly thought as being the site of
“the nun's cemetery” this is a bit
misleading, for other burials found in this area
over the years include the remains of men, women
and children. Families were an important part
of the monastery's religious community.
A second separate cemetery was excavated
at Church Walk in 1972 and 1976, just south of
the medieval church of St Hilda (in Medieval times
an “a” was added to the end of Hild’s
name, hence the different spelling). These burials
also include men, women and children, and are
buried with their heads to the west in distinct
groups. This cemetery too dates to the 8th Century.
A third Saxon cemetery is also known to the rear
of Gladstone Street, but has been relatively little
exposed in comparison to the other cemeteries
due to the presence of houses overlying the majority
of the site.
Where did all these people live? The
earliest find of buildings from the Anglo-Saxon
monastery was made in 1968 during redevelopment
in Lumley Street. Further finds of buildings were
later made at Church Close in 1984 in the area
between Anchor Court and Morrison Hall. These
discoveries show that the monastery consisted
of a number of small rectangular wooden buildings
grouped together into clusters, and separated
by wooden fences and boundary ditches. Modern
reconstructions of these wooden buildings can
be visited at the "Bede's World" museum
at Jarrow. Until recently it was thought that
the monastery buildings were mainly concentrated
to the north of St Hilda's church. However, excavations
by Tees Archaeology on the Friarage Field in July
2003 discovered the remains of Saxon buildings,
pits and fences further east than previously thought.
The monastery doubtless originally covered the
entire southern half of the Headland.
The growing number of Saxon artefacts
found in the last 20 years has also added much
to our understanding of the jobs that took place
in the monastery. For example, the excavations
at Church Close found evidence for metalworking,
including a number of moulds. One of these shows
a calf with a trumpet, one of the symbols of St
Luke, which was probably used for making decorations
for the cover of a book. The important role of
a monastery in producing religious books is also
shown by finds of copper pens used for writing.
What is interesting however is what archaeologists
do not find when excavating the remains of the
monastery. There are few personal items like belt
buckles or clothing pins, only a few fragments
of pottery and a complete absence of food rubbish.
While we suspect that rubbish was thrown away,
perhaps into the sea like at Whitby, generally
the lack of finds shows that life in the monastery
was rather austere. Indeed, Bede describes both
of Hild’s monasteries as similar to the
early church ideal where, “ …no-one
was rich… for they had all things in common
and none had any private property… she compelled
those under her direction to devote… much
time to the study of the Holy Scriptures.”
This doesn’t however explain the presence
of a fine disc-headed pin with gold decoration
found in Baptist Street in 1995. Perhaps a rich
visitor dropped it? This item is on display in
the Museum of Hartlepool.
What happened to the monastery? While
previous local writers have blamed a Viking raid
for destroying the monastery in the early 9th
century, none of the sites excavated shows any
signs of a Viking onslaught. Indeed the archaeological
evidence leans towards abandonment as the Northumbrian
monasteries fell apart in the political troubles
of the late 8th Century. A tantalising glimpse
of this abandonment was recently found at the
Friarage Field excavation, where a layer of wind-blown
sand covered the Saxon layers, showing that the
site was abandoned to nature at the end of its
life.
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