Northumberland

In the little Priory museum on Holy Island, off the most northerly coast of Northumberland, there is on display, in a glass case, a necklace of St Cuthbert’s beads. Holy Isle, previously Lindisfarne, is claimed as the first seat of Celtic Christianity in England. Cuthbert, sixth bishop of Lindisfarne, is credited with being the first bird-conservationist, and the eider duck is still known locally as Cuddy’s duck. But back to Cuthbert’s beads. These are the fossilised stalks of the crinoid, or delightfully named feather-star, a primitive form of marine creature. One can presume, from the necklace on show in the museum on Holy Isle, that the monks might have used these necklets as a form of rosary. You can still find these tiny beads on the island’s beaches. They resemble little stone buttons already pierced with a central hole.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lindisfarne Priory. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian

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I was over on the island recently – the Venerable Bede has described it aptly as a semi-isle as it only begins to look like an island when the tide is high – I came across two youngsters on their knees combing the sand, opposite St Cuthbert’s retreat, with their fingers. I inquired for what they were searching. “Cuddy’s Beads,” said the elder of the two, and then he produced from his trouser pocket a little transparent plastic bag in which he had placed sections of the petrified stalks of the echinoderm – feather-star.