Day 8. Beauty and Burials - Budle to Bamburgh

An incredibly bright, sparkling day and I decide to walk part of St Oswald's Way from Budle Bay to Bamburgh Castle whilst I wait for Rachel to arrive.

The official route goes inland from Lindisfarne before joining the coast at the golf course above Bamburgh; but I walk from our hideaway cottage on Budle Bay, walking out to Budle Point then along the beach, instead of the cliff path. I check the map, its probably about 2 miles each way. I can do that....

The wind is almost constant along Budle Bay, but I love its wildness, and the sun is warm. The sea sparkles, the beaches are vast and open. It's an Armani colour palette of soft browns and beiges and that signature blue-grey or blue-green.  

I walked with this wind in the winter, hunkered down into the hooded warmth of my padded coat but today the wind, though wild and blustery, is milder, my blue cardigan, that blends with sea and sky, is warm enough. 

At Budle Point the wind lifts the soft white sand from the dune edges and carries it down the beach towards the sea. Long out-stretched threads of dancing sand, that wave and weave across the darker sand beneath, it catches the sunlight and stings the bare flesh of my ankles.

I cross the rocky outcrop of stone for which this coastline is so famous. Think, perhaps, that if I had my time again, I would study geology....or archaeology. I walk towards the squat, square lighthouse, and as I pass to its southward side a face of two round windows, a heraldic nose and a big green smiling door greets me. 

Then, there it is, Bamburgh Castle, rising from its rocky outcrop, above the dark green dunes and bright white sand. Oswald lived in an earlier fortress on this site from 634, after his victory at Heavenfield, the home of the Northumbrian throne, originally known as Bebbenburg, named after Queen Bebba. This was where Oswald welcomed Aidan, before providing him with the island home of Lindisfarne on which to build his priory. Real people, living real lives, not mythical, mystical Saints, but men that would have walked this beach, seen the sunsets and sunrises, lived out their lives.....and there are remains of other lives here, too.

Between 1998 and 2007 an Anglo-Saxon cemetery was discovered in the dunes below the Castle. A total of around 110 individuals were discovered, including men, women, children and infants. It is thought to be the largest Anglo-Saxon burial site this far north. 

Extensive research was carried out on the skeletons, including isotope analysis of their teeth, that would reveal the kind of diet they had eaten, and from where they originated. Some individuals had travelled from Southern Europe and Scandinavia, but interestingly many came of the western isles of Scotland. Oswald had sought refuge at the monastery on Iona from 616 and Aidan was a monk there from an early age. Perhaps many of the people buried in the church yard had accompanied these men on their journey to Northumberland. 

One skeleton was of a man about 5' 9'' tall, of a stocky, muscular build, he was in his late 30s or early 40s when he died, around the time that Oswald returned to Bamburgh. His strong build suggested he may have been a warrior and isotope analysis showed that he had grown up with a good diet, indicating a high-status upbringing, around the Western Isles of Scotland. It is possible that this man and Oswald knew each other, they were a similar age and may have been in exile together, fought together at Heavenfield and both retuned here to Bamburgh. 

The remains of all the Bamburgh cemetery individuals were reinterred in the crypt of nearby St Aidan's Church. Although this is a later building many of the people would have known the original wooden church that stood on the site. Each of the individuals was identified by a codeword in Old English that would have been familiar to them when they were alive; Hryeg meaning 'ridge', Orsorg meaning 'carefree'.  

You can find more information about the Bamburgh burial people here Digital Ossuary – Bamburgh Bones, including the stories of women who travelled with young children from southern Europe to the western isles of Scotland. What led them to take such a journey?  There are more details about the discovery of the cemetery here Bamburgh's bowl hole burials - Current Archaeology 

I lay in the soft dune sand, not far from where these bodies would've been buried, absorbing the heat of the sun. I decide not to go into the village, but head back home along the the beach, facing into the wind now, but not alone at all, my soul full with the beauty of it all.