Almost a million people visit the Holy Island of Lindisfarne every year. Many are drawn to finding a place apart and seeing the place where Christianity came to the north of England.
And like the pilgrims of old, those who come and stay on the island need a place to stay, and some can’t afford to spend much.
Marygate House has been serving visitors seeking peace, rest and spiritual refreshment on the Holy Island since 1970, functioning as a non-profit retreat centre for those who wish to stay on the island for longer than the fleeting hours between high tides, when the island becomes accessible by land. But after 54 years of providing solace and support to visitors, Marygate House now requires the architectural equivalent of solace and support too.
“While we are strong in heart and spirit, the structure of the building is suffering,” says Frances Wilson, the centre’s warden. “Holy Island sits several miles out in the North Sea and is often battered by storms and strong winds which take their toll.”
As a result, in order to deal with the immediate depredations of Holy Island weather and to make the building watertight, the retreat centre has had to launch a number of initiatives, including a JustGiving page, to try raise £30,000 to cover the cost of urgently required works to the fabric of the building.
If the campaign is successful, Marygate House has ambitious plans to ensure that it can continue into its next half century providing shelter to those who come, including establishing a programme that will make the building environmentally more responsible, more comfortable for its guests and, in particular, more accessible for disabled visitors.
After a tricky time re-opening after Covid-19 and lockdowns, the retreat centre has been fully open for just under a year and only fully staffed since October 2023. Since February this year, it has had 350 people booked in. It is open to individuals doing personal retreats, parish groups and themed retreats, such as the “Even Sparrows” retreat for birdwatchers.
Wilson explains that the retreat centre is set up as a Christian venture that is “independent of denomination” and “provides Christians with a retreat house”. Though she notes that if anyone contacts the retreat asking to come as “simply a seeker”, that is absolutely fine – “maybe their stay will be their encounter with God”.
Lindisfarne become known as Holy Island because of the part it played in the story of how Christianity came to the British Isles. In the 7th century, King Oswald of Northumbria granted Lindisfarne to Aidan, a monk and missionary, so that he could establish a monastery modelled on one in which he had lived on the island of Iona.
As a result, Lindisfarne became part of “an archipelago of holy islands [that] encircled Great Britain,” Oliver Smith writes in On This Holy Island: A Modern Pilgrimage Across Britain, his account of visiting various holy and pilgrimage sites that are part of the country’s religious and spiritual heritage. “I imagined these islands as being like a network of satellites – relaying signals along the seaboard, collectively beaming the word into the dark mainland.”
Some UK clergy have intimated that such darkness appears to be returning to the mainland of modern Britain. In his Easter Message this year, the Rt. Rev. Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, warned that England’s “Christian inheritance” could be at stake in the forthcoming UK General Election.
“Most people come to experience being ‘earthed’ once more in this Island of Tides,” Wilson says. “Twice a day, the island is closed [off] by the tide, just as it was in St. Aidan’s time. Aiden established his community here so that he would be near enough to the royal seat at Bamburgh, to support King Oswald and the spread of the Mission in this land, but with the necessary solitude for a dedicated life which the incoming tide brings.
“In a chaotic and noisy world, it is vital to provide places for silence and contemplation, which has been our charity’s overriding concern,” Wilson says. “Our visitors’ book is a testament to the comfort this has brought to people over the decades.”
At the moment, if the £30,000 can’t be raised through the current initiatives, there “isn’t a Plan B”, Wilson says. She explains that “the elements have wreaked havoc on the walls of the house”, resulting in damp ingress which means that some rooms are now unable to be offered to guests.
“This will only get worse,” Wilson adds, and she fears the house “can’t go through another winter” in its present condition.
Photo: Pilgrims carrying wooden crosses as they walk over the tidal causeway to Lindisfarne during the final leg of their annual Good Friday pilgrimage, Berwick-upon-Tweed, England, 29 March 2024. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images.)
Anyone interested in making a donation to Marygate House’s restoration project can visit its JustGiving page here.
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