The Parish Church of St.Mary the Virgin
(Anglican)

THE CHURCH OF ST.MARY THE VIRGIN is the oldest building on Holy Island and the only building that retains work from the Saxon period. In the wall that divides the nave from the chancel there is a Saxon arch touching the later early-english arch and high above this a typical Saxon 'door'. On the outside of the building looking towards the west you can see quoin stones from the Saxon period where the nave joins the chancel. It could be that some of these stones are from the church that was built around St Aidan's wooden church. It is very likely that St.Aidan worshipped on this site from arriving in 635AD.
The Norman work in the church was an extending or re-ordering of the old church and was done in the twelfth century. It would seem that the parish church was extended about the same time as the Priory was built. When the Priory church was extended in the thirteenth century, the parish church was also extended giving it its present chancel and south aisle. The shape of the church as we see it today was completed in the thirteenth century.
The oldest memorial in church is in the north wall of the sanctuary and appears to be a mitre, a cross and a sword. This is apparently from the twelfth century. A memorial under the chancel arch is to Sir William Reed of Fenham 1604, with the inscription "Contra vim mortis, non est medicamen in hortis", which translates " Against the power of death there is no remedy in the garden".
In the sanctuary there is a beautiful Celtic Carpet made by the women of the Island that is a copy of the St. Mark's Carpet page from the Lindisfarne Gospels. A carpet replicating the St. Matthews page was more recently manufactured for the fishermen's altar to celebrate the millennium.

At present there are at least three services every day:

To this church are many pilgrimages each year with the annual number of visitors exceeding 165,000!! There is an opportunity to pray for people each day and we do pray for people that request our prayers.

David Adam