17th June: Lost Buildings of Lindisfarne event a success

This Sunday local historian and our volunteer Reserve warden John Woodhurst gave the first of his walks/talks planned for this season. John writes:

"A warm bright sunny day and back on Lindisfarne telling people about the island's "lost buildings" for another year - great to be back! A good crowd out, this time with an international flavour thanks to Mr and Mrs Van der Graf, and I think all enjoyed hearing about a little known side of the island's history - 9th century Anglo-Saxon settlements, 19th century lime kilns and limestone quarries, not to mention an Edwardian 9-hole golf course!

Thanks to Laura our new full-time warden for assisting on the walk. I made a couple of new friends in Lowick and met an old pal's aunt - who said her nephew wanted to ask how my morris dancing was getting on - private joke - seriously I don't!

Another thing - whilst I'm at pains to point out on the walks that I do history and not flora and fauna I was really chuffed to identify northern marsh orchid, bird's foot trefoil and "wooly bears" as the caterpillar of the garden tiger moth for our audience - impressive for me!

Hope to see some of you on future walks."

Looking towards Snook House whilst hearing about the early settlements here

Thanks very much to John for such an informative and entertaining walk! It was a fantastic day and our group learned so much about the island's history and what life was life for the island community in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.

John telling the group about a very well preserved stone cottage, previously hidden in the sands

John's next walk is "St Cuthbert - Lindisfarne's First Nature Warden" on Wednesday 14th July, and if you missed it this time he will be doing the next "Lost Buildings" walk on Sunday 28th July. See the Events page for more details.