Mystic Isles : Three Wind-swept, Romantic Outposts of Britain and Ireland

INDISFARNE, England — It was the cold that woke me at dawn, a creeping damp that had seeped straight through my bones in the dead of night. Mr. Ward, the proprietor of The Manor House, had sworn faithfully to turn on the central heating (Yes, I knew it was the middle of June. Did he know my “four-poster suite” had the ambience of a crypt?) But the promised warmth never arrived.

In the gray morning light, I could gaze from my high windows down to the ruined priory below, with its crumbling remnants of Norman arches, deep red in color and open to the elements. Beyond this, a field of sheep struggled to their feet in the tall grass, and at the edge of the land, a little harbor kissed the sea. The lobstermen were just pulling out to set their traps for the day’s catch.

Lindisfarne, stretching off the Northumbrian coast of England near Berwick upon Tweed, is only cut off as an island when high tide washes over the two-mile spit of sand that connects it with the mainland. (In that regard it’s not unlike its more famous counterpart in France, the island of Mont St. Michel.)

At this quiet hour last summer in June, the island was still swathed in a nocturnal, unmoving fog, yet the turrets of its most famous landmark, a medieval castle at the water’s edge, reached out of the gloom like fingers pointing toward heaven. When glimpsed from the mainland A1 road on a cloudless day when the tide is in, the isle and its castle are a bewitching sight, a Sleeping Beauty vision mirrored in an endless ocean.

Below the castle, the rest of the isle exists much as it always has: Seven little village shops sell vegetables, candy, maps, a few souvenirs. No less than three pubs serve locals and interlopers alike, who stand elbow-to-elbow at the Castle, the Northumberland Arms or the Crown and Anchor, tossing darts and downing pints of ale. Fishermen, sheep farmers and visitors all go for the local crab, lobster and plaice fillets.

Mention the name Lindisfarne to many British people and you’ll get a puzzled look. One of the three Farne Islands lying 300 miles north of London near the Scottish border, this North Sea isle may ring a bell, but it isn’t up there with Stratford upon Avon or the Cotswolds in your typical tour books.

Despite a few shining moments in the public eye--director Roman Polanski used the island as a setting for his filmed version of “Macbeth” and writer Gordon Honeycombe’s novel “Dragon Under the Hill” vividly depicts the present-day village--Lindisfarne remains remote and aloof, geographically and philosophically removed from today’s England. There are only 150 inhabitants left, no police force and very little in the way of divertissements . At low tide, the village is only a few minute’s drive from the mainland via the paved, sand-bordered causeway, but most motoring tourists sadly pass right by this archetype of an England of 30 years ago.

No matter. To reach this Holy Island, so dubbed by pious Roman Catholic monks who settled here centuries ago, one must take a time trip and a history lesson--back to an era of Viking conquests, saints and sinners, and the very roots of British Christianity itself.

More than 50,000 visitors come every year, in search of just such cultural discoveries. They drop by at low tide for a quickie pilgrimage to the graves of St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert, two Celtic missionaries who, from AD 698 to 721, inspired their followers to create the regal Lindisfarne Gospels, the earliest fully-illuminated English book known. (The Gospels hold a special place in the British Museum in London, but reasonably impressive facsimiles rest comfortably within the walls of little St. Mary’s, Lindisfarne’s 13th-Century church, at the edge of the village next to the priory.)

Like its northern neighbor, Scotland, Holy Island was savagely pillaged by the Danes late in the 8th Century. If by some chance the devout but hapless monks managed to survive outright slaughter, they were driven naked into the freezing fog. After enduring my June night of shivers, I can quite comprehend their reasons for a hasty decampment. Their monastery lay abandoned for 200 years, after which the island again became a center for monastic life. That is, until the mid-16th Century, when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men were sent by the Crown to build the first Lindisfarne castle as a garrison in case the Scots decided to invade. By now, they were on opposite teams.

Described in its heyday as “a pretty fort, like a ship riding high on a wave,” the castle lost its importance with the union of England and Scotland under James I. And, although it had been a busy military center, the island village itself never thrived. So, times being what they were, the citizens of Lindisfarne turned to the misfortunes of the sea for survival. They became wreckers and smugglers. According to historians, they would often drop to their knees (led by the local parish priest) and pray to God that ships in danger might smash upon their rocks. Looting became their way of life.

Holy Island enjoyed a brief, more legitimate prosperity in the mid-19th Century. But at the turn of this century, its fisheries vanished and the limestone kilns, which had supplied building material for houses all over England, closed.

Enter fortune in the name of publisher Edward Hudson, a patrician who, in 1897, had founded that very bible of refined English living, Country Life magazine. On a visit to the island with the magazine’s editor, Peter Anderson Graham, one sunny afternoon in 1901, he was intrigued by the castle. Finding it unoccupied, they scaled the walls for a closer look, and what Hudson saw so impressed him that he became obsessed with the notion of buying the austere ruin, planning to convert it to a “holiday home.”

He quickly negotiated the castle’s purchase from the Crown, which seemed elated to be rid of it, and to give shape to his vision, turned to the talents of a young architect named Edwin Lutyens. Hudson, who preached his preference for restoration--rather than demolition--of historic buildings with the fervor of a Lindisfarne monk, couldn’t have chosen a more formidable adversary than his castle. From almost every aspect, it was a cold and daunting dwelling, far removed from the airy weekend house parties favored by the wealthy, turn-of-the-century Edwardians who read his magazine.

But, inspired as people were at the time by Gothic romantic fantasies, one can imagine the ecstasy of those setting eyes on the castle for the first time: the shrieks of seagulls, the rushing wind, the crashing of seas in stormy weather all added to its drama. Lutyens--now generally considered the greatest English architect since Sir Christopher Wren--found Lindisfarne’s fortress a great adventure, and was endlessly amused that Hudson had decided to take on the project at all.

He was particularly tickled by the half-barrels sitting atop the posts that lined the stretch of sand separating the castle from the mainland; a person was meant to climb into one if unexpectedly caught by the tide while crossing. Tide tables became essential.

Hudson’s first move, which seems entirely sensible to me, was to take the icy chill off the stony structure, and this was where his troubles began. The thick fortress walls made central heating impossible. Electricity was also out of the question. There were few existing fireplaces; there was no hot water.

Yet the discomfort simply made Hudson’s quixotic visions grow stronger. He would organize fishing trips at dawn for his guests. He would plant a fashionable walled garden of intricate pattern, mapped out by the grandest gardener of her day, Miss Gertrude Jekyll. Also an early patron of Lutyens, Jekyll was highly influential and, judging from portraits of her from the period, bore an uncanny resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock. She worked wonders with Hudson’s land, despite its extreme exposure to whipping winds and briny rainstorms.

Lutyens kept his room refurbishments simple, finishing up with a total of nine bedrooms, graced with Gothic tracery windows and curving arches, and reached by an unusual angled stairway. The effect was quite unlike anything visitors had ever seen. The Ship Room was a favorite, named for the model Dutch ship that hung in the center of its vaulted ceiling. The architect whitewashed dingy walls, introduced gleaming brass ornamentations and filled hollow corners with simple but excellent English and Flemish antiques. In a burst of bohemian abandon, he even purchased a raven from a London dentist, transporting the bird shrieking to the castle, and let it have run of the place. This proved to be an ill-conceived affectation: The bird upset both guests and priceless china, and was eventually sequestered in a cage.

A sunny Long Gallery led to bedroom suites, linking the east and west buildings of the former structure. Guests would often assemble there before going down to meals in the small dining room with its huge blue fireplace and matching Delft table settings. But appreciation of the castle’s charms varied.

One perturbed guest wrote: “It’s so very dark, with nowhere to sit, and nothing but stone under, over, and round you, which produces a depressing effect--especially when hurrying downstairs late for dinner--to slip would be instant death!”

Lutyens’ wife and children visited for a 10-week holiday in 1906 and complained bitterly of biting gales and fireplaces that choked the castle with smoke. There was a brief comical visit in 1908 from the Prince and Princess of Wales, who would soon become King George and Queen Mary. They made a hasty departure, without a single night spent in Hudson’s folly.

But other of his contemporaries basked in their host’s splendid hospitality, and although it took many hours to reach from London, they came in droves. But by the onset of the 1920s, the initial lure of Lindisfarne wore off for Edward Hudson, who sold it to O.T. Falk, a London banker. Falk couldn’t stand the place, and swiftly sold it to another banker friend, Sir Edward de Stein, who, with his sister Gladys, used it as a family home, lending it to relatives and honeymooning pals. Sir Edward donated the castle to the National Trust in 1944, but remained its sole tenant until he passed away. His sister then moved in until her death in 1968.

Although the heavy volume of day-trippers has occasioned restricted hours, the castle can now be considered the main attraction of Lindisfarne, set apart as it is on basaltic rock, like a slightly tarnished jewel in a precious setting. The interior remains starkly fashionable, something like a snug luxury liner, and volunteers lead small groups on half-hour tours, pointing out notable intersections of history and architecture.

In the village, the locals can be a rather clique-ish lot in the pubs in the evenings, with visitors sometimes greeted by stares and silence. The ice will be quickly broken, though, by a cheerful pub owner asking, “What’ll you have?” Thick with smoke and the smell of cod and chips, these weather-beaten bars are nevertheless quite cozy. Snatches of day-to-day island doings, local scandals and good-natured arguments provide welcome entertainment on a blustery night.

The town was originally constructed to accommodate several hundred people, so its present depopulation gives it a hushed, almost eerie tranquillity, even at midday. Landmarks with such names as Lilburn’s Cottage, Jenny Bell’s Well and Willy Potts’ Rock reflect the antiquity and the legacy of long-dead inhabitants. Other names are simplistically descriptive: Crooked Street or Primrose Bank.

The island can justly claim to be unique for the fact that no synthetic feeling of a “tourist fishing village” exists at all. The sole nod to intruding visitors was the addition of a mead factory by the Lindisfarne Liqueur Company in the ‘60s. The purported “Old Monk’s Recipe” blends two single malt whiskies with honey and herbs, which, decoratively bottled, is sold to the curious. This intensely sweet mead is also incorporated into Lindisfarne fudge and marmalade.

I have a strong suspicion the Mead Factory may be a cooperative venture: Every time I stopped a villager to inquire where a landmark or shop was, I was asked, in astonished tones, “But haven’t you been to the mead factory?”

Island lodgings (I hesitate to call them hotels) are more on the order of guest houses, or pubs with rooms to rent. None are top drawer, but The Manor House was clean--and only three flights up.

The Priory Museum near the ruins proffers obscure details about vanished dignitaries with anagramish names: Cuthbertus, Ethelwold, Eardulf and Billfrith.

A residential commune run by a Christian group still operates at the edge of the village adjacent to the church and the priory, and offers friendly, albeit monastic shelter. Known as Marygate House, its occupants might include the odd hermit or two, music students with Wagnerian aspirations or scholarly ornithologists seeking cell-like solitude at no fixed rates. This honor system, I was told, works well. Perhaps, as the legend insists, it really is “the holiest place in Britain.”

Dotted about the cliffs and cemetery, stone memorials stand to the lifeboat men, daring heroes whose unsung work saved many a drowning mariner. One of the earliest lifeboat stations in Britain began here, and, remarkably, no lives were ever lost from the crews of rescuers, who managed to salvage 336 men in danger between 1865 and 1968, when the lifeboat services were discontinued.

Groups of killer whales regularly pass the island, and gray seals can be found in groups of 40 or 50, nestling near the Snook, as the causeway is known. The common porpoise makes its way past in summer, when the sea is not quite so bracing.

Any woods that may have existed were long ago drowned by flood waters or stunted by north-easterly gales. But the damp dunes sprout their own exotic flora: the beautiful grass of parnassus, the evening primrose, even a strange Australian hybrid called pirri pirri bur. Eleven members of the orchid family grow wild and free. Strips of powdery beach are sprinkled with the upturned hulls of lifeboats, transformed into working huts by the fishermen.

Old Northumbrian customs still exist, bizarre and ritualistic. Nicknames, for instance, have always been commonly preferred by the islanders over Christian names, the more popular being Slim, Tam, Bim, Tinko, Tar, Wonker, Bones and Lulu. These monikers may be pinned on at birth, and some folks even pass them on to offspring.

The Holy Island dialect is in itself a phenomenon which, although scrupulously studied by linguists, apparently has never been pinned down, falling somewhere between the fishing port accent of Fife in Scotland and the lilt of a nearby Newcastle “Geordie.”

Marriage customs are quaint and queer: A bride must jump the “petting stone,” helped over by the two oldest fishermen in town. The stone lies between St. Mary’s and the priory, and is the base of a pre-Norman free-standing cross. A clear jump signifies good fortune and fertility.

What exactly is the appeal of this microdot on the map that measures only a mile and a half from one end to the other? It is certainly the castle, and then perhaps the village, with its sturdy, rough-hewn cottages, some draped in roses, others with lobster traps.

It is also a rare, self-contained world, with the ghosts of holy men ever present. You can see relief spread across a hiker’s face as he escapes from present-day reality into a grassy field, the whispers of a summer wind calling across the dunes. It takes four hours to walk the perimeter of the island, passing waving marram, wild Lindisfarne ponies, bar-tailed godwits (one of 311 species of birds here) and hundreds of wild rabbits.

Sitting on the hill above the sea near the priory ruins, I watched in the late-afternoon light as a young couple stared hypnotically at the horizon, where the sky met the water in a silvery seam. The puffy white sails of a passing schooner caught the salty breeze, and a pastel flock of gulls crossed overhead in flight. Lindisfarne, above all else, is a sanctuary for birds of a feather seeking momentary solace.

GUIDEBOOK

Loitering in Lindisfarne

Getting there: If you’re driving from London, take the M1 motorway to the A1 road. By train, the Edinburgh Intercity 125 from King’s Cross will get you to Berwick upon Tweed, the nearest mainland town. The island is accessible, at low tides only, by the narrow causeway, so tide tables, which vary by day, should be consulted. For about $23, station taxis will take you from Berwick to the island, 12 miles north of town.

When to go: In general, the climate on Lindisfarne resembles that of southeast Scotland. Summers are typically cool with early morning mists, usually clearing to sunny afternoons. Winters are somewhat mild for the north. Best months for visiting are June through October.

What to do: The ancient priory and nearby museum are open year-round, with nominal entrance fees. The mead factory is open to the public, with free tastings available. The castle is open for tours, but hours are erratic. Signs are posted in the village; check before you go. Boat trips to the other isles, priced at about $7, leave from the mainland village of Seahouses, a few miles south of Lindisfarne.

Where to stay: There is a small choice of inns, guest houses and “private home hotels,” which frequently change with the season. Some of the larger establishments include: The Manor House Hotel, The Castle Hotel, Lindisfarne Hotel, North View Lodge and The Bungalow. The Northumberland Arms pub has rooms to let, and Marygate House offers room and full board at no fixed rates, although a guideline of about $23 is suggested. Overnighters should check both bath facilities and the cost of lodgings. I insisted on the best room at the Manor House Hotel, and my cool garret cost more than $100. Most island rates average $30-$50 per person, breakfast included.

Where to eat: Meals are limited to the dining rooms of hotels and inns, or to the more casual pubs. The Manor House Hotel offers tasty home cooking, with pub-style lunches and dinners. Best bet is fresh local seafood.

For more information: The Berwick Tourist Information Office will help you work out Lindisfarne’s tide tables, suggest accommodations, etc. From the United States, call 011-44-289-330733.