The Early Monastic Church of Lastingharn

The church of Lastingham is the best surviving architectural witness to the earliest stages of that revival of monasticism in Northern England which began in 1074 when a small party of monks set out from Winchcombe in Gloucestershire and Evesham in Worcestershire to refound some of the historic monastic sites of the Anglo-Saxon period in Northern England. 1 The primary efforts of this group were directed towards Jarrow, Melrose, Wearmouth and Whitby, but a secondary interest grew in other ancient sites such as Tynemouth and Hackness shortly afterwards, and it is surely no coincidence that Lastingham likewise had a distinguished Anglo-Saxon past.