Hartlepool Abbey

Hartlepool Abbey was a Northumbrian monastery founded in 640 CE by Hieu, the first of the saintly recluses of Northumbria [Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, lib. iv, c. 23.] , and Aidan of Lindisfarne, on the Headland Estate of Hartlepool now called the Heugh or Old Hartlepool, in County Durham, England.

Construction and early days

Built in the early Saxon style, it was likely a walled enclosure of simple wooden huts surrounding a church. It was a joint-house of both monks and nuns, presided over from 640-649 by Hieu, the first female abbess to ever be put in charge of such an institution. [Archaeologia Aeliana, xix, 47.] In 649 after Hieu left for Tadcaster, Hilda (later Hilda of Whitby) was appointed second abbess of the abbey by Bishop Aidan. In 655, King Oswiu of Northumbria sent his one-year-old daughter Ælfflæd to stay with Hilda, "to be consecrated to God in perpetual virginity" [Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, lib. iii, c. 24.] , an important gesture. Hilda stayed at Hartlepool Abbey until 657 or 658 when she became founding abbess of Whitby Abbey, then called Streoneshalh.

Impact

A village was founded around the monastery in the 7th century, marking the earliest beginnings of the modern town of Hartlepool. However, after Hilda left Hartlepool Abbey it, and the village surrounding it, is not mentioned again in any known sources [Archaeologia Aeliana, xvii, 205.] until the 12th century [ [http://www.thisishartlepool.co.uk/history/oldhartlepool.asp Old Hartlepool - This is Hartlepool ] ] , and appears to have declined in importance until it was finally either sacked and destroyed by Danish Vikings around 800 ['Legend of St. Cuthbert' (1626) by Robert Hegg seems to suggest that the monastery was destroyed: 'Then [i.e. in A.D. 800] perished that famous emporium of Hartlepool, where the religious Hieu built a nunnery . . . whose ruins show how great she was in her glory.'] , or possibly simply abandoned. [http://www.teesarchaeology.com/projects/saxon_monastery/index.html Tees Archaeology - Saxon Monastery, Hartlepool ] ]

Excavations

No trace of the monastery remains today, though the monastic cemetery has been found near the present-day St Hilda’s Church. It is the most extensively explored of all the Northumbrian monasteries of the 7th and 8th centuries, beginning in 1833 when workmen building houses on the headland found human burials and Anglo-Saxon artefacts. [http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/archive/2000hart.html Channel 4 – Time Team ] ] [http://www.teesarchaeology.com/projects/saxon_monastery/index.html Tees Archaeology - Saxon Monastery, Hartlepool ] ] A namestone found during this excavation can be found on display in St Hilda's Church. Significant finds are still being unearthed to this day. [http://www.teesarchaeology.com/projects/saxon_monastery/index.html Tees Archaeology - Saxon Monastery, Hartlepool ] ] Hartlepool Abbey was featured in a March, 2000 episode of Time Team [http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/archive/2000hart.html Channel 4 – Time Team ] ] , called "Nuns in Northumbria", where bones and a book clasp were found.

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