On the way back to Wooler we decided to do a detour and walk up to St Cuthbert's cave.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 875 as the Danes ravaged Lindisfarne and "... destroyed all the monasteries. Eardulf, bishop of Lindisfarne, and abbot Eadred, taking the body of St Cuthbert from the island of Lindisfarne, wandered about for seven years."

According to legend, these caves might have been among the places in which either the monks took shelter with their holy relic or where Cuthbert himself lived as an anchorite hermit before moving to the Farne Islands.