TO COMMEMORATE next year’s 1,000th anniversary of the legendary King Cnut’s pilgrimage through County Durham, villagers in Trimdon – where he stopped to trim his hair and don his cloak – are raising money to recreate a landmark wooden cross that would have stood in the king’s day.
A £20,000 appeal has been launched to raise an artist-designed monument on the village green, near the entrance to the ancient St Mary Magdelene church. It is hoped the cross will stand for another millennium or more because the true derivation of the village’s name is that it is the place of ‘the wooden cross on the hill’.
St. Mary Magdalene church in Trimdon Village. (Image: Unknown)
That original wooden cross may have dated back to 627 AD when the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria were converted to Christianity by St Paulinus, and it may well have been there in 1027 when the Danish king, who famously failed to turn the tide, passed through on his way to pay homage at the shrine of St Cuthbert.
Cnut c995-1035. King of England, Denmark and Norway. (Image: sub)
Adam Luke, one of the Trimdon 2027 organisers, said: “We want the new landmark to be something everyone in the Trimdons is proud of and that puts us on the map for the next 1,000 years, standing as a testament to our pride in the present and our hope for our future.”
Not only does the story of the cross and Cnut – also spelled Canute – take us back 1,000 years, but it takes us to a bloody time when the powerful played their power games across the Durham countryside.
627
On Easter Day, April 12, King Edwin, of Northumbria from the Humber to the Forth, is baptised by Paulinus in York. Although his territory also becomes Christian, it is not until 635 that Aidan lands on the holy island of Lindisfarne and begins converting the people. The first simple Saxon churches begin to be built.
Trimdon Village in the mid 1960s (Image: Unknown)
700
At 569ft above sea level, the place we now know as Trimdon is the highest point on the coastal plain. It has long had a strategic significance – the bank leading up to is known as “Watch Bank” because it was such a good place to spy on the neighbours – and religious importance.
In about 700, a wooden church is built at Trimdon on a coffin-shaped piece of raised land that could have been a pagan burial place.
995
Having been chased around the north by Viking invaders, monks carrying St Cuthbert’s body settle at Durham.
With the help of Uhtred the Bold, of Bamburgh, who is the most powerful man in the North East, they establish a place of sanctuary. Uhtred marries Ecgfrida, the daughter of the first bishop, Aldhun, to show how committed he is to Cuthbert’s cause.
1013
Sweyn Forkbeard, of Denmark, invades England by sailing up the Humber. He defeats King Aethelred II (the Unready) and briefly rules the country. Uhtred, who had supported Aethelred , acknowledges Sweyn’s rule.
1014
In February, Sweyn dies, and Aethelred tries to return to power. Uhtred transfers he allegiance to Aethelred and, having put the unfortunate Ecgfrida to one side, he marries Aethelred’s daughter, Elfgifu.
St Mary Magdalene Church, Trimdon (Image: Unknown)
1015
Cnut, the son of Sweyn, invades Yorkshire in a bid to regain the throne his father briefly held. England is now bitterly divided between the Vikings of Cnut and the Saxons of Aethelred and Uhtred.
1016
Aethelred dies in April, probably from exhaustion having fought the invaders for so long. He is succeeded as English king by his son, Edmund Ironside, to whom Uhtred is loyal.
But at the Battle of Assandun in Essex in October, Edmund is badly beaten by Cnut who takes control of the whole country.
Cnut invites Uhtred to meet him in a hall near York to discuss peace in the North East, but as Uhtred enters the hall, Thurbrand the Hold and Cnut’s soldiers spring out from behind a large curtain and slaughter Uhtred and 40 of his leading supporters.
Cnut, who is bloodily cleansing all England of Anglo-Saxon noblemen, undoubtedly connived in Uhtred’s murder. It means that Cnut can now appoint his own men to rule the North East.
For the people of the North East, this is a big moment: their Saxon rulers have been replaced by Vikings.
King Cnut tries to hold back the tide, to prove to his followers that he is not as almighty as God (Image: Unknown)
1027
Cnut – now known as “Cnut the Great” – has become the most powerful man in northern Europe, ruling England, Scotland, Denmark and Norway.
He is invited to Rome to attend the crowning of Conrad II as the Holy Roman Emperor – Conrad is the most powerful man in all Europe.
On his way back north, Cnut decides to pay a visit to the shrine of St Cuthbert, one of the most popular saints in the country.
This is all part of his power game, trying to meld the old Saxon powerbases into his reign.
He has already married Emma of Normandy, the widow of King Athelred, to join the royal families together, and now he wants to penetrate deep into Uhtred’s former powerbase and win over the followers of St Cuthbert.
Indeed, Cnut – the only Viking to become king of England – is eager to show his subjects that he is not the bloodthirsty invader of old but is a pious, humble sort of a person.
That is what the tide-turning story is all about. Cnut’s followers thought that he was godlike in his power. To prove he was not, he placed his throne on the beach and ordered the waves to stop coming in.
If this story is genuine – and it was first told in the 1130s – it shows what a decent, down-to-earth chap he was.
The rear of St Mary Magdalene Church, Trimdon (Image: Unknown)
As does his Durham pilgrimage.
Fresh from being with the most powerful man on earth, Cnut stops his boat at humble Hartlepool and stumbles ashore. He reaches Trimdon, high on its hill and with its holy wooden cross sticking into the air, and prepares himself for St Cuthbert.
He puts the riches of kingship to one side, dons a cloak, trims his hair into a monklike tonsure, and walks barefoot, in deference, to Durham. He follows Via Garmundi, an ancient road probably named after a Saxon landowner, that takes him through Garmondsway, an old, deserted village about a mile to the west of Trimdon.
At St Cuthbert’s shrine, Cnut atones for the murder of Uhtred by giving the monks much of his land in the North East, especially Staindropshire where he has a large house near what is today Raby Castle.
This ties him to the old English religion so that he shares a common bond with his people.
But it is also important for St Cuthbert. Rather than being yesterday’s saint, his followers find themselves connected to the new powerful king, and, following Cnut’s gifts, they begin to amass the land and the wealth that will make the prince bishops the biggest players in the region for centuries to come.
An Edwardian postcard of St Mary Magdalene Church, Trimdon (Image: Chris Lloyd)
1146
The wooden church at Trimdon is rebuilt in stone in the Norman style by the Augustinian monks from Gisborough Priory who own, and farm, the land around.
Dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, it has a most unusual horseshoe shaped chancel arch. The shape has probably been caused by subsidence – the church may be on an old burial ground, there are all sorts of stories of tunnels leading from it to Durham cathedral and, of course, in later centuries, miners hollowed out the ground beneath it.
Looking across Trimdon village green to St Mary Magdalene Church (Image: Unknown)
1196
The first written reference to Trimdon is found in financial records. It is to “Tremeldona” which is its Saxon name: “treo mael dun” means “a wooden cross on a or hill (or hill fort)”.
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When the wooden cross was first placed there is unknown, but it is highly likely it was present when Cnut visited, and when it disappeared is also lost in the mists of time.
Fundraising is now beginning to replace it to commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of Cnut’s visit. Anyone who feels able to contribute should send their contribution the Church Treasurer GA Defty, 10 Front Street North, Trimdon Village, County Durham, TS29 6PF, or contact her on 01429-882041 for more information on other payment options. Cheques can be made payable to “Trimdon DCC Upper Skerne Parish”.
In the morning drizzle of August 31, 1997, Tony Blair makes his famous (Image: WILL WALKER)
L With thanks to Adam Luke and Professor Michelle Brown