Identifier: imperialislanden00hunn (find matches)
Title: The imperial island; England's chronicle in stone;
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Hunnewell, James Frothingham, 1832-1910
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, Ticknor
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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maintains a fort, with guns and pilesof balls, around the ruins of the ancient shrine. But good careis kept, it should be said, of the worn fragments of the church;its walls are freshly pointed, and a large, very useful, if lesspicturesque lighthouse stands near the site of the altar of theHoly Virgin. Early in the seventh century, according to report, the kingof Northumberland built a small wooden chapel here, andnot long afterwards a monastic institution was established.Through the next few centuries the usual history of theabbeys on the eastern coast was here repeated. The ma-rauding Danes, with fire and sword, came more than once, andthe ruin that they caused was painfully repaired. At lengththe Norman rule enforced some quiet, and the priory became acell of Durham. In 1090 the Black Benedictine Canons wereinstalled. Twenty years later the buildings were howeveragain destroyed ; but they arose once more, and in much greaterbeauty, and in time the wealth of the community increased
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TYNEMGUTH, THE CHOIR. NOKTHUMBERLAND. — HEXHAM. 271 until, among other property, it held twenty-seven villas inNorthumberland ; and although the Scotch ravaged the place,the revenue of the priory at the Dissolution was estimated atfrom £397 to £511. Tynemouth is a neat, rather large, and modern-looking town,with bathing places and a very handsome new aquarium. At itsfarthest seaward end is the bold rocky point, girt with defensiveworks of various ages. Near the centre of the area they en-close stand the ruins of the priory, built of squared blocks of aveined yellowish sandstone, now grown yellowish-brown, dark-gray, or black. Only the lower parts of the west front and endremain, but they are badly worn, and all of the nave is gone. Apeculiar wall that closed it from the transept is still standing,pierced by two small round-arched doors, between which, onthe eastern side, is the wreck of an arcade with dog-toothedornaments around the arches. The chief part of the churchexisting, an

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