Welsh writer, of ‘Kicking’, ‘St Cuthbert’s Corpse’ and now ‘Black Rood': “Excellent... pure detective work" @HistoryScotland; “Totally compelling" @UndisScot.
Durham, England
Joined October 2009
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David Willem retweeted
Reliquary containing a relic of Æthelthryth's hand at St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place, Holborn. The relic was rediscovered in 1811 and installed in the church in 1879.
📸2026
Oct 17: Feast of the translation of Æthelthryth (†679), virgin. Queen of the Northumbrians, then nun at Coludaesburg (Coldingham) and finally founder-abbess of the double monastery at Ely. Her incorrupt body was given a more prestigious resting place #OTD in both 695 and 1106.
ALT A depiction of Æthelthryth holding a book and flower from the Benedictional of St Æthelwold.
David Willem retweeted
Pontop Hall near Dipton in County Durham. Pontop was home to Catholic families such as the Swinburnes and Salvins. In the 1790s during the French Revolution, English priests in training fled here from Douai in Flanders, later moving to Crookhall (near Consett) and later to Ushaw.
David Willem retweeted
Today is the Feast of St Edward the Confessor, the only pre-Reformation English saint whose body remains within his still intact original shrine (albeit restored in the reign of Mary I)
David Willem retweeted
Was reminded of Proust's little yellow wall. Very proto-modern(?) How wonderful.
A seemingly modern moment of abstraction in a medieval manuscript, representing silence as a yellow rectangle: publicdomainreview.org/colle…
“And when he opened the 7th seal, there followed a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour”
(Silos Apocalypse, BL Add MS 11695)
Often wondered if part of the reason the Black Rood (the basis for the stag legend and of the name Holyrood) ended up in Durham in C14 was because Edward III knew of David I's connection to Durham, via D's parents' patronage and via his own architectural tribute at Dunfermline.
I ❤️the North East. Scampi and Bacon (flavour) Fries top of the Healthy Snacks section. It’s the improvisational humour you get everyday that makes it such a great place to live.
David Willem retweeted
The name Holyrood, or 'Holy Cross', comes from the legend that King David I of Scots was about to be attacked by a stag while on a hunting party, when a white cross appeared between its antlers. The stag then vanished & David was saved. He then built Holyrood Church on the site.
There is a unique, always intensifying silence at a poetry reading when, in the presence of wonderful poetry, the audience suppresses every little noise in profound mutual attentiveness.
“The character of the English village is always sinister” - the title of a poem by Kym Deyn #NewcastlePoetryFestival
Looking forward to the return this weekend of Newcastle Poetry Festival after its one-year hiatus. l’ve so missed this highlight of my literary year in the North East. But…
Ah Mephistopheles, I will buy too many books.
David Willem retweeted
Gavin has written a new book on Northern Saints which takes the reader on a journey from Holy Island to the shrine of St Cuthbert in Durham. Along the way you will meet both well-known and unfamiliar saints in places they made holy by their lives.
durhamcathedral.ticketsolve.…
David Willem retweeted
The original article that Fr Michael Rear and I wrote for The Catholic Herald is sadly no longer available online, but I summarised my own view of the evidence here: drfrancisyoung.com/2019/07/2…
Today is the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham. Here's a photo (taken in winter) of the remains of her Priory, with the (Anglican) shrine church visible in the background — but also, a photo of a wooden statue kept at the @V_and_A and known as the Langham Madonna which, on the basis of research by Fr Michael Rear and Dr Francis Young, I honestly believe may well have been the image of Our Lady traditionally venerated at Walsingham.
Made me think @EvanHD: when was the last time Scotland, Wales and Ireland all had leaders "personally committed to independence"? How about 1169: pre-capture King of Scots William the Lion; the first Prince of Wales Owain Gwynedd; and Rory O'Conor, the last High King of Ireland?
David Willem retweeted
A view of the Durham skyline in the 1860s.
A Pressphotoman piece on three photographs of the same view taken from roughly the same spot 100 years apart.
pressphotoman.com/2026/09/14…
The crowd filming the late Queen’s cortège as it leaves St Giles’s Cathedral in Edinburgh en route to London OTD 2022
Good to see the Diocese doesn’t discriminate against beings from other planets
David Willem retweeted
Apparently my Máel Coluim book is £5.79 on kindle just now:
amazon.co.uk/M%C3%A1el-Colui…
