On the way back up from Northeast England last June we took a trip over the causeway (having looked up the tide-tables beforehand) to Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, a place I’d always wanted to visit but somehow had never seemed to find the time before.

It’s an odd experience driving over the causeway – it feels quite long – but the trip was worth it. There was more to Lindisfarne than I’d imagined. Not just the castle and Priory.

Lindisfarne Castle from Approach Road:-

Closer view:-

From the road there’s a good view over the sea to Bamburgh Castle:-

I thought the objects in the next photo were a bit odd, but obviously with some age to them. Only when I got home and looked them up did I find they were Guile Point obelisks and lighthouse. (When lined up the obelisks indicate the safe channel into Lindisfarne harbour.) As seen from Lindisfarne:-

They can be seen again in the background here beyond Lindisfarne’s foreshore with these wooden stumps:-

There is a small village on the island (where lie the remains of Lindisfarne Priory) and a harbour.

Lindisfarne Harbour, Village and Priory from road to Castle:-

In the last episode of Waldemar Januszcak‘s excellent television series on the mostly unheralded art of the Dark Ages, where he covered the Vikings, the Carolingians and The Anglo-Saxons, he referred to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) as being off the North coast of Britain.

Tut-tut, Waldemar. That would make it in the Pentland Firth/Atlantic!

Lindisfarne is actually barely two-thirds of the way up Britain.

It is, however, off the North-East coast of England.