As any historical novelist will tell you, there’s a time to quit the library and walk the land of your fictional work, which is why  Phd student Fiona Whyte took a pilgrimage to Lindisfarne.

The pilgrim path to Lindisfarne is marked by long staves rising from the sand. Pilgrims walk barefoot across the sands, stones and mud to reach Holy Island, the home of Saints Aidan and Cuthbert and the birthplace of the Lindisfarne Gospels.

I’m visiting Lindisfarne to do some research for my PhD project – a novel based partly on the life of St. Cuthbert (c. 634 –March 20, 687).  The central character is a fictional re-imagining of the anonymous monk who wrote Cuthbert’s first hagiography. For now though, I’ve put away the books and notepads; I want to get a feel for the place where Cuthbert’s story took place, walk the land he and my other characters walked.

But it’s not straightforward. Lindisfarne is a tidal island; twice each day the North Sea sweeps in and cuts it off from the mainland. To walk across takes about two hours, and newcomers are cautioned against using the pilgrim route alone. With only a few precious low tide hours to spend on the island, I dismiss the prim voice in my head, urging me to immerse myself in an authentic experience of the landscape, and instead take the safer option of the road which can be crossed by car and has a refuge post for visitors who find themselves stranded by the incoming tide.

I walk the short distance from the car park to the village. There’s a sharp breeze, accompanied by an occasional spattering of rain, and despite the fact that it’s mid-July and I’m wearing four layers of clothing, I’m feeling pretty cold.

The village is charming with its stone cottages and floral displays. I pause to take in the statue of St. Aidan, the founder of the first monastery here in AD 634. The saint represented here is tall and gaunt. He gazes firmly forward. In his right hand he grips his staff and in his left he carries the torch of the gospel. He is a very different figure to the bronze statue of St. Cuthbert by Fenwick Lawson in the grounds of the priory. This sculpture presents Cuthbert in a seated pose, a portly, thoughtful character, more meditative than visionary. Yet somehow it’s the lean, purposeful St. Aidan which stays with me and, ironically, provides me with a physical picture of how I’d like to portray Cuthbert.

The priory ruins on Lindisfarne today are not those which Saints Aidan and Cuthbert inhabited. Viking raids in AD 875 forced the monks to flee the island, taking with them the (uncorrupted) body of St. Cuthbert as well as the dismantled wooden church of St. Aidan, before the Vikings destroyed what was left. The exact location of the Celtic monastery is unknown, though it’s possible that the second monastery, constructed in the twelfth century, was built close to or on the same site.

I wander through the ruins of the church, into what would have been the sacristy and then around the rest of the monastery: the chapter house, the parlour, the warming house and the refectory, and finally into the remains of the cloisters. These were intended for contemplation and study and were also where manuscripts were produced.

Presumably, during bad weather some of the work was done indoors, in the monks’ cells perhaps, but huddling in my Gore-Tex jacket, I can’t help thinking of the scribe Eadfrith at work out in the open on his monumental Lindisfarne Gospels, trying to control his shivering hands to produce his delicate, detailed illustrations and lettering, and of my poor anonymous monk – the central character of my novel –  diligently writing Cuthbert’s life with the wind sweeping around him, knowing that when his work is done and he is gone no one will even remember his name.

Entering the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, the first thing I encounter is a striking sculpture of six monks carrying a coffin. Known as The Journey, this is another piece by Fenwick Lawson, and it depicts the monks of Lindisfarne carrying St. Cuthbert’s body on the first stage of its journey to Durham after the Viking raids, a journey that would last almost 200 years – but that’s another story.

The few tourists inside the church move noiselessly. Like me, they seem captivated by Lawson’s sculpture. Though it depicts a long and desperate journey to a then unknown destination, undertaken in savage times, it is a deeply contemplative and serene piece, at home in this quiet church, originating from the 12^th century, and built on the same site as St. Aidan’s original wooden church. This is the only building on the island that contains work from the Saxon period, and you don’t need a novelist’s imagination to feel the presence of Aidan, Cuthbert, Eadfrith and all those other nameless monks who prayed, worked and wrote here.

Moving back outside, I make my way to the Heugh. This is a small hill at the south end of the island and is the best vantage point from which to view the entire island and the mainland beyond. From here I can see Lindisfarne Castle – an iconic image of the island – though from my point of view, it was built in the relatively recent past (around 1550) and therefore I will have to give it a miss today.

Looking over to the mainland I see Bamburgh Castle, the seat of the kings of ancient Northumbria, and I realise that however desirous Cuthbert and his ilk were of physical solitude and space for prayer and contemplation, they were never too far from that other world of power, politics and dynastic rivalries.

Just offshore is a long piece of grass-covered rock with a large cross standing at its centre. As far as I can make out, it is deserted. Winding around pools of seawater and crunching thousands of mussel shells underfoot, I cross the sands, and make my way over. This is St. Cuthbert’s Isle, the spot which Cuthbert made his own and used as a hermitage. Here are the remains of a small 13^th century chapel; the cross marks the spot of the altar. Near the chapel is small mound which may be the remains of a circular house, possibly used by Cuthbert. I realise that the scene around me isn’t very different from what Cuthbert would have looked out on, and finally I begin to have a stronger sense of where to ground his story.

I spend my remaining hour here, walking the islet, watching the ducks and birds, and just sitting on a stone in the remains of the chapel, thinking. I wonder about what drew Cuthbert here, away from his fellow monks in the priory, why his need for solitude was so strong he used the sea to create a boundary between himself and the Brothers; because just as the high tide cuts Lindisfarne off from the mainland, it also cuts off St. Cuthbert’s Isle from the Island.

I don’t have time to figure out the answers just now. Time and the tide are marching on. I return to the main island, join the remaining few tourists trailing back to their cars and start to plan a return trip. Next time I will be walking the Pilgrim’s Way.