Bloody stains on a saintly cliff face

EDWIN was a saint from the North-East, but the poor fellow needs all the patience he can muster because nowadays he is rather overlooked.

There are only three churches in this country that bear his name. One is in Midlothian, in Scotland; another is between Doncaster and Scunthorpe, where he met his death; and the other is at High Coniscliffe, the "king's cliffe" above the River Tees, just outside Darlington.

Edwin was born in 585AD. His father was Aella, the first king of Deira - the land between the Tees and the Humber.

But when Edwin was three, Aella died and Ethelfrith seized the throne.

Orphan Edwin was forced out of Yorkshire and grew up with relatives in Mercia, in the Midlands. There he married Princess Cwenburga and plotted his revenge.

He got it in 616AD, when he defeated Ethelfrith in battle on the River Idle in the East Midlands. Ethelfrith was killed, and Edwin became king of Northumbria and ruler of all the land between the Tweed and the Humber.

The Venerable Bede (673AD to 735AD) wrote that under Edwin, Northumbria became a land where the law was respected.

"A woman might travel through the island with a babe at her breast without fear of insult, " he wrote approvingly.

In 625AD, Edwin married Ethelburga, sister of King Eadbald of Kent. Some sources suggest Edwin's first wife, Cwenburga, had died; others that he simply "put her aside".

This second marriage was a defining moment in Edwin's life for two reasons.

First, Ethelburga was a Christian whereas Edwin was a pagan. Eadbald only allowed Ethelburga to venture north accompanied by Bishop Paulinus as personal chaplain.

Paulinus converted Edwin and made him the first Christian king of Northumbria.

Second, the putting aside of Cwenburga made the pagans of Mercia very unhappy. They, who once assisted Edwin in taking revenge against Ethelfrith, now plotted their revenge against Edwin.

On October 12, 633AD, at the Battle of Hatfield Chase (today where the M18 meets the M180 between Doncaster and Scunthorpe), Edwin was killed by King Penda of Mercia, the cousin of the rejected Cwenburga.

Paganism returned to Northumbria, and Paulinus carried Ethelburga back to Kent and safety.

Edwin, though, was a martyr, having died for the Christian cause, and he was canonised with his feast day on October 12. For his part in the story, Paulinus was also made a saint, and his feast day is on October 10.

FAST forward 150 years. Bede is dead, but more AngloSaxons with confusing names and bloody deeds are traipsing the landscape.

In 759AD, near Corbridge, a chap called Athelwold Moll, from Catterick, assassinated King Oswulf of Northumbria and took his crown.

Oswulf 's family fought back unsuccessfully. On August 6, 761AD, a three-day battle took place at Edwin's Cliff.

Athelwold Moll emerged victorious, having killed Oswine, who was believed to have been the son of Oswulf.

Athelwold Moll was succeeded on the throne by his son, Athelred, but his reign came to an end with defeat in battle in 779AD by Alfwold.

That battle took place at Cinigesclif - the King's Cliff - which, a couple of decades earlier had been called Edwin's Cliff.

This really was a cliff of carnage, because a year earlier, 778AD, someone called Ealwulf was murdered at Cyningencliffe by two fellows called Athelbald and Heardbhert.

Cyningencliffe is clearly King's Cliff, but no one seems to know who Ealwulf, Athelbald or Heardbhert were, so we will conveniently gloss over this piece of Anglo-Saxon brutality.

It was the Vikings, a century or so later, who started to tidy things up for us.

Their word for king was coning, and so this high piece of land became Coningscliffe - which we today know as Coniscliffe.

CONINGSCLIFFE really is a stunning cliff, particularly when viewed from the river. For centuries, agricultural lime was quarried out of the riverbank, right up to the churchyard wall.

The old vicarage has been built into the steep face of the quarry, its rounded turrets rising like a Swiss chateau out of the cliff.

It was built in 1860, on the site of an 18th Century vicarage by Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812 to 1873).

He was a renowned architect, born in London, who created "a large number of buildings in a vigorous and highly original Gothic style".

He came to the attention of Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, and received commissions to build cottages and workshops in the grounds of Windsor Castle.

Perhaps his best known piece is the Buxton Memorial Fountain, in the Victoria Tower Gardens, in London, which stood in Parliament Square until the 1950s.

Dramatic as St Edwin's vicarage is, Teulon is best known in County Durham for building the complete village of Hunstanworth, north of Stanhope.

Here, from 1862 to 1863, for the Reverend Daniel Cooper, he rebuilt a church, a vicarage, a school, a school house and a range of housing from terraced to detached.

BEHIND the clifftop vicarage, when viewed from the river, is St Edwin's Church.

The oldest of what we see dates from the 12th Century, but inside are Anglo-Saxon carved stones that appear to be the remnants of an older building.

The most striking of these is just inside the porch. It shows an animal inside a circle. On either side are a couple of winged angels who are trampling dragons beneath their feet.

Of course, this is an Agnus Dei: a representation of Jesus, the Lamb of God, inside an eternal circle, flanked by angels who triumphantly trample on the defeated Devil.

But look at the culottes the angels are wearing. Look at their wings. Look at the curious serpents masquerading as dragons. Look at the animal in the middle - it is no Lamb of God, but rather more like a bull or horse.

It looks as if the angels' wings have been scratched on later. The word Agnu also appears to be a later addition.

It looks as if the stone has been Christianised long after its mason and his beliefs had disappeared.

The suggestion is that this is a Roman pagan stone. The Romans, of course, crossed the Tees just down the road at Piercebridge.

They may have had a temple on top of this imposing cliff - perhaps dedicated to their Mithraic religion. (There are also supposed to be a couple of Roman blocks built into the church tower. ) Another suggestion is that this is a Sarmatian stone. The Sarmatians were nomads from the East.

The horse was central to their life and religion - although whether they wore culottes is not recorded.

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius defeated the Sarmatians in 175AD. As punishment, he took 8,000 of their finest cavalrymen and sent them to the most troublesome extremity of his empire: Hadrian's Wall, where the revolting Scots were perennially unpleasant.

To get there, these cavalrymen trudged on horseback up Dere Street and over the Tees at Piercebridge.

Could they have left this stone as a tribute in the clifftop temple?

When Edwin and Paulinus converted the pagans of Northumbria to Christianity - and Bede writes that the natives were throwing themselves at Paulinus in their desire to be baptised - the stone and the temple on the clifftop had to be converted as well.

What better name for this newly Christian cliff to take than that of the king, later a saint, who converted it?

BECAUSE of St Edwin's, High Coniscliffe was initially called Church Coniscliffe. Echo Memories is visiting because of the clock within that church, which is a Potts clock.

It was installed in 1892 at the time of a "thorough restoration, when the church was reseated, the floor relaid with cement, the screen and altar erected, and other improvements were made at a cost of £600".

By chance, last Friday, to relieve the excitement of an audience with John Prescott in Durham City, a visit was made to the antiquarian bookshop on Elvet Bridge, in which there was a wonderful engraving of another thorough restoration in 1844.

The only timepiece visible in this is a sundial, which appears to be inside the church, although a photograph of 1868 suggests that, pre-Potts, St Edwin's had a diamond-shaped clock on its tower.

Coniscliffe's Potts clock was electrified last year.

As regular readers will know, William Potts (1809 to 1887) was born in Salt Yard, off Bondgate, in Darlington, and served his clockmaker's apprenticeship with an horologist on High Row. He founded a company in Leeds that continues to bear his name.

Many of the public clocks in this area are Potts clocks: Darlington town clock; St Cuthbert's, Darlington; South Park, Darlington; St Mary's, Gainford; St Mary's, Staindrop; St Thomas', Stanhope; Our Lady Immaculate and St Cuthbert, Crook; Etherley Church and Sadberge Church. Plus one we are currently investigating in Aldbrough St John.

If we have missed any out (and we probably have), or you have anything to add to any aspect of today's column, please write to Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF, e-mail chris. lloyd@nne. co. uk, or call 01325-505062.

With thanks to John Snaith of High Coniscliffe.

Published: 23/06/2004

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.