Wearmouth-Jarrow Facts

  • Work to achieve the nomination has been going on for four years – it is a great achievement and one which the whole region welcomes
  • The Anglo-Saxon twin monastery of Wearmouth Jarrow was a major centre of European learning and culture in the 7th century and its international influence remains today
  • Its inscription as a World Heritage Site will have a major impact on North East England – in terms of a boost to its economy, international profile and the further development of cultural, tourism and educational links across the world
  • Wearmouth-Jarrow was ‘one monastery in two places’, the creation of Northumbrian nobleman Benedict Biscop (ca 628 – 690), who made 6 journeys to Rome during his lifetime and gathered books, treasures, craftsmen and teachers from across Europe for his new monastery.
  • St Peter’s, Wearmouth, was founded by Benedict Biscop ca 674.  St Paul’s, Jarrow, was founded ca 681.
  • Benedict Biscop brought stonemasons and glaziers from France to build his monastery ‘in the Roman manner’.  The monastery buildings were amongst the first built in stone in Northumbria since Roman times.
  • Wearmouth Jarrow has the largest collection of rare 7th century coloured window glass anywhere in Europe.
  • St Paul’s, Jarrow, was dedicated on 23 April 685.  The dedication stone, which remains in the church, is the earliest to survive in an English church.
  • The oldest one-volume Latin Bible to survive in the world, the Codex Amiatinus, was made at Wearmouth-Jarrow.  It took 515 animal hides to produce.  Originally it was one of three huge Bibles made at the monastery.  It is now kept in Florence.
  • The Venerable Bede is the only English person to have been made Doctor of the Universal Church in recognition of his outstanding scholarship (by Pope Leo X111, 1899).  He is also an international best-selling author – his works have been in constant use internationally for 13 centuries.
  • Bede wrote on theology, history, science, mathematics, astronomy, geography, music, poetry, etc.  He developed parts of the calendar still in use today, including how we calculate the date of Easter and popularising the BC/AD dating system.
  • Wearmouth-Jarrow saw the beginning of the Northumbrian tradition of stonemasonry and stone carving, still visible in both St Peter’s and St Paul’s
  • The Venerable Bede was the first English person to use the term English – two centuries before the country became united – and to write the history of England.
  • Over 80,000 people visited part of the Site last year at either Bede’s World or the two churches. These visitors include people who travel from all over the world.

World Heritage Site Bid Home Page