ACROSS LAKELAND - A Northern Coast to Coast Walk: From St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay - page 11

Crossing South Head, St Bees
Although it is claimed by some that Bega was a mythical character arising from the
pagan Nordic custom, in vogue in the 9th century, of swearing oaths on a sacred arm-
ring, the 'bracelet of the blessed Virgin Bega, kept in the priory church' on which oaths
were taken, is mentioned in no less than six charters recorded in the early 13th cen-
tury.
The Life and Miracles does not mention that Bega was shipwrecked on the Cumber-
land coast, or that a nunnery was founded, these details apparently being added in the
17th century by one Edmund Sandford. Sandford also wrote: 'There was a pious reli-
gious Lady Abbess and some of her sisters driven in by storm at Whitehaven and ship
cast away i'the harbour.' The Abbess begged assistance from the Lady of Egremont
whose lord promised the nuns as much land as snow fell upon the next morning 'bein
midsumerday'. In pre-global warming days, snow did indeed often remain as late as
mid-summer, and, not surprisingly therefore, though he must have been a little taken
aback, the next day the morning saw the land for three miles to the sea covered with
snow. 'And thereupon builded this St Bees Abbie and gave the land was snowen unto it
and the town and haven of Whitehaven' with other dues and further lands. Obviously,
a man of his word.
The Church of St Mary and St Bega is an exquisite place. Its greatest glory is the
west doorway, a deeply recessed, richly columned and decorative portal dating from
about 1160, and a splendid example of late Norman work. The church contains a num-
ber of late Norman coffin slabs, while in the transept is a beautifully incised effigy of
Lady Johanna Lucy, who died in 1369. In the churchyard rest two mutilated 13th-cen-
tury knights, one bearing a shield with the arms of Ireby upon it. Of more recent times,
there is a touching monument of a child of four on a tomb under a recess, a disquieting
little figure as she lies asleep, a spray of lilies in her hand.
St Bees School, entered through a beautiful memorial gate, was founded in 1583 by
Archbishop Edmund Grindal of Canterbury, a native of the district, by virtue of a charter
of Queen Elizabeth. At first intended as a free grammar school for local boys only, a
restriction it maintained until 1879, it later widened its educational opportunities and
opened its doors to others.