St.Lawrence Church, Warkworth


		St.Lawrence Church Warkworth

		Vicar's Letter Worship Guidebook A Short History Church Interior Church Outside The Hermitage The School Coquet Island The Vicarage The Vicars Photo Albums Restoration Appeal Friends of the Church Warkworth & Acklington Church of England Parish Records Contacting Us		Guidebook A Short History The name Warkworth appeared in Anglo-Saxon history during the twelfth century as Wercewode. Werce was the name of an Abbess who gave a sheet of fine linen to the Venerable Bede to be used as his shroud. The word 'worth' means a palisaded enclosure. In an early version of the Gospels we read for 'Peter was beneath in the Palace'; 'Peter was beneath in the Worth.' A Saxon Church - A church has stood on this site for more than twelve centuries. The first record in history is that in 737 the King of Northumbria gave Wercewode and its Church of St.Lawrence, to the Abbot and monks of Holy Island. The King's name was Ceowulf, and it was to him that Bede dedicated his History. Two years after Bede's death, Ceowulf entered Lindisfarne as a monk. This event is depicted in the central panel of the Pulpit. Danish Raids - This first church can hardly have survived the Danish raids in the next century. We hear an echo of those raids in the name of Warkworth beach 'Birling', the Danish for 'longships'. In 875, the year when the monks fled with St.Cuthbert's body from Lindisfarne, '...Halfdene, the Danish King, pitched his camp on the Tyne and cruelly wasted the land from sea to sea and sailed to Wrycesfade which he destroyed...' The next church was of stone, and its foundations have been traced beneath the present Chancel arch. A small cross marks the spot where the altar stood. Scottish Raids - Saturday July 13th 1174, was a black day in the annals of Warkworth history. We read that Duncan, Earl of Fife, accompanying the Scottish King William the Lion, entered Warkworth, set fire to the town and put to death three hundred of its inhabitants who had taken refuge within the walls of the church. The Present Norman Church - Norman churches were built not only as places of worship but also as refuges in time of danger, and our church is an example of this. It originally consisted of a Chancel with a stone roof and then the nave, a long narrow space enclosed by two immensely thick stone walls. The windows, set high in the walls were mere slits which kept out the enemy and the weather. There was little glass in those days, and the church must have been a comfortless place, without light, with no seats and with an earthen floor; but it sheltered the altar and the people. The south wall was subsequently taken down to allow the aisle to be built. Sir Richard of the Golden Valley - In 1120, Henry I gave the churches of Warkworth, Whittingham, Rothbury and Corbridge to his Chaplain, Richard de Aurea Valle. In autumn days, it is difficult to say which of the valleys gave him this title - The Coquet, The Aln or The Tyne - but surely it was a fitting one. Later, at his death, those four churches were made an endowment for the newly formed Diocese of Carlisle and remained so until Newcastle became a diocese in 1882. Harry Hotspur - In the course of time Warkworth passed into the hands of the Percy family. Harry Hotspur, the adventurous young Englishmen, spent his youth here and attended church. Readers of Shakespeare's Henry IV will remember two scenes laid in Warkworth Castle and will not need to be reminded that the famous phrase 'Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety', was coined here. Harry Hotspur was planning the course of action which ended in the battle of Shrewsbury, and Neville Chamberlain used it on his return from Munich. The Reformation - We are sometimes told that Henry VIII started a new Church, but we find that Cuthbert Hopyn was Vicar of Warkworth in 1538 and continued till 1572, well into the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This rather confirms continuity; the old Church was not re-started, but re-formed. The Jacobite Rebellion, 1715 - Warkworth has the doubtful honour of being the first market town in England in which the Old Pretender was proclaimed King. This happened on Sunday morning, October 9th, when the rebel forces, having arrived here from over the border, 'General' Forster called upon the Reverend William Ion, the Vicar of Warkworth, to pray for the Pretender at Morning Prayer. On his refusing to do this, the Papal Chaplain read the morning service from a Prayer Book, and preached a rousing sermon which heartened the 'General' so much that he forthwith drew up his troops in the Market Place and proclaimed James III as King. 'It was done by the sound of the trumpet, and all the formality that the circumstances and the place would admit.' Another record states that the rebel promised 12d a day to all persons joining them, except 'only the Presbyterians, whom they expressly excluded from that honour.' John Wesley - On Saturday May 16th 1761, John Wesley tells us he was staying at Alnwick when he received a message to come over to Warkworth. A carriage was sent for him and he preached to a 'quiet and attentive congregation.' In many churches Wesley was refused permission to speak but it was evidently not so in Warkworth. The church would hold a very big congregation. The parish included Amble, Acklington and Chevington who occupied a special gallery erected at the west end. The pulpit in those days was set against the first pillar, with the hour-glass which we still possess, fixed to it. Wesley later in the day crossed over the river and visited the Hermitage.

last updated 05/04/10 21:07