Hobthrush Island

Hobthrush is connected to Lindisfarne at low tide in the same way Lindisfarne is connected to the mainland, but it is an island at high tide. It was here, within sight of the main island, that Cuthbert first attempted living as a hermit. He soon realized it was still too close to Lindisfarne; monks could still shout over to him. After that he went to Inner Farne, where no one had ever stayed for long.
This is how I viewed Hobthrush before crossing over to it.
Any structure Cuthbert may have used would have been wooden. A later stone hermitage was built while Saxons were in charge of Lindisfarne (i.e., before 1066 and all that). All we have now are the foundations of that structure, seen in the above photo with some folks sitting on the foundation stones in prayer and a cross at one end of the rectangle defined by the outline. In the distance beyond the cross is St Mary's on Lindisfarne and some of the Priory ruins to its right.
Here I stand with the parish icon of St Cuthbert at the foot of the cross in this ancient place of prayer. Since Cuthbert lived on this small isle as a hermit, I assume he walked over every inch of it, so it is a special place for me.

I took the icon for a double purpose. In Eastern Orthodox piety, wherever an icon is, there is Christ or the saint depicted. In this sense, Cuthbert was with me during this pilgrimage. Additionally, since it is the parish icon of our patron, I felt that all the people of St Cuddy's were with me through the icon. In that mystical sense, you were all part of the pilgrimage too. Cuthbert's image thus represented the cruciform mystery of vertical and horizontal relationship, linking a saint from the past with a people moving into God's future, and linking us across geographic distance.