Deep Places

My last holiday post (I think) describes encounters with three dramatic Northumberland locations which I found affecting me in unexpected ways. The first was St Cuthbert's Cave, supposedly where the monks carrying the body of Cuthbert from Lindisfarne to Durham in about 875 to escape Viking raids sheltered on their journey. It's really just an overhang of rock and would only have provided shelter if the wind was blowing in the right direction, but nevertheless as you approach up the footpath through the woods its long, low shape promises a numinous location, and that's what you find. I'd been blown to and fro by strong winds and stung by rain all the way up the hill, but at least I had the car and a flask of tea to go back to, unlike the walkers I encountered at the Cave who were clearly in it for the long haul.

Looking out from the calm sanctuary of the overhang down the hill, I re-experienced a sensation which goes back to my earliest memories. My mum often told me that as a baby I sat in my pram playing with the rain on the canvas top outside the hood. I surely can't remember that, because nobody remembers what happens to them as babies: and yet any experience which follows that pattern - being somewhere dark and looking out at the rain - seems to carry an echo of that memory. It's at the absolute root of my sense of who I am.

From there I went to Yeavering, a tiny hamlet right on the north of the National Park. This is the site of Ad Gefrin, the 7th-century palace complex of the Northumbrian kings where St Paulinus converted King Edwin to Christianity. Thirty years ago I read about Ad Gefrin and Brian Hope-Taylor's excavations there and for some reason the place has always stuck in my imagination. My intention was to climb the path to the hillfort of Yeavering Bell, which you can see in the background of the photograph, but one look at it convinced me that even had it not been raining and blowing a gale and my knee not been playing up I wouldn't have attempted it. In fact, the site of Ad Gefrin is on the flat area to the north of the road, now distinguished by a monument and these carved wooden fence-posts. You can wander around the field where the buildings stood, read the interpretation boards, and try to imagine what it might have been like. Rain or no rain, I was glad to have re-acquainted myself with Ad Gefrin, this haunting place.

Finally, I wanted to see Linhope Spout, said to be the most impressive waterfall in the National Park. On an afternoon of more rain and wind I parked up a mile and a half away, which is as close as you can get by vehicle, and took the footpath over the hills. The waterfall looked nothing like the photographs I'd seen online, showing a quite mild cascade and people bathing in the plunge pool into which the water falls. What I found was anything but calm. The stream was in full spate, swollen by rainwaters, and trying to get anywhere near the fall would probably have killed you. Thousands of gallons of water smashed over the fall and into the rocks, spraying, spouting and roaring. It was a mesmerising display of natural power - but one I found very unsettling as I imagined what it might do to me. I was dizzied and disoriented. When finally I managed to break the water's spell and leave, I found myself almost tearful with relief, a very strange reaction.