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The island which derives its name from, and lies
opposite the mouth of the river Coquet,
L is visible from the Simonside hills and from very
considerable distances to the north and south ; in the nearer distance
it forms the most conspicuous and attractive feature in the landscape,
for by day the whitewashed walls of the lighthouse tower,
N and by night the revolving light (said to be at its
brightest at a twenty mile radius), arrest the eye of the onlooker. It
has an area of about 14 acres, and it was described about the year 1682
by the Admiralty hydrographer in the following passage :
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Cocket Island lieth six leag. from Tinmouth castle, and
above a mile off shore, and is a good road for southerly
winds. From the south end of the island to the shore it is
all rocks and broken ground, where, at low water, at one
place there is 8 or 9 foot, and dangerous ; but the north
side is bold, only from the north-west part of the island
lie off some rocks, about half a mile ; small vessels may
bring the island south, and anchor in three and four fathom,
but greater ships must bring the island south-east, and
anchor in five fathom at low water. The road is clean sand.
N |
In the spring of 684 the
island was the scene of the interview granted by St. Cuthbert
N to Elfled, sister of King Egfrid and abbess of Whitby. It
was already celebrated for concourses of monks.
L Pressed by Elfled's feminine curiosity,
L the hermit gave her to understand that Egfrid had only
twelve months to live, and would be succeeded by a king whom she would
treat equally as a brother. ` Thou seest, 'he continued, `this great
and broad sea, how it aboundeth in islands. It is easy for God to
provide someone out of these to be set over the kingdom of the English.'
Elfled at once understood him to refer to Aldfrid, a reputed son of her
father Oswi, who was devoting himself to study among the islands of the
Scots.
N She knew that Egfrid wished to make Cuthbert a bishop, and
he was obliged to confess that it had long been
foretold him that he would be compelled to accept the dignity ;
`but,' he added, `in the short space of two years I shall find rest from
my labours.'
L
Several objects, which are ascribed to the ninth century,
have been discovered on the island ; they comprise a ring found in 1860
bearing the inscription ` OWI
' in Old-English runes ; a circular bronze buckle and a metal ornament
were also found in the keeper's garden at another time. The latter is
enamelled in dark green, light green, and yellow, with a cross in the
centre.
N
After the Conquest, the island (with Amble and other valuable
possessions) was given by Robert de Mowbray, earl of Northumberland, to
the prior and convent of Tynemouth.
N It was off Coquet Island that the corn ships on which
William Rufus relied to provision his troops in his expedition against
Scotland in A.D. 1091 were lost in a sudden squall.
N
The legend of St. Henry of Coquet, in the beginning of the
twelfth century, is in complete harmony with the weird character of the
island. A Dane of noble birth,
LN he is said to have been directed by a vision to make good
his escape from a marriage his parents were endeavouring to force upon
him, and to serve God all his days as a hermit on this particular rock.
L He landed at Tynemouth,
L and obtained the prior's consent to build a small cell on
the island, which was in the charge of one of the monks. For some years
he allowed himself a little loaf and a draught of water every day :
afterwards he took food only thrice a week, and gave up speaking for
three years. During the last four years of his life he ground his barley
into meal with a mill-stone, and after moistening it with water, made it
into little round cakes that he dried in the sun. His privations brought
upon him many harsh words and opprobrious epithets from the monk in
charge of the island.
L His relations sent to urge his return to Denmark, pointing
out that there were plenty of wild spots there suitable for a hermitage.
He threw himself on his knees before his crucifix, and believed that he
heard the Christ command him to remain to the end in his Northumbrian
cell. He regarded a loathsome affection of one of his knees as a further
sign forbidding his departure. Supporting himself on a crutch, he still
insisted on digging his little field ; his crops were marvellous.
L Like St. Cuthbert, he was credited with second sight :
the monk, his persecutor, found him praying before the altar for the
soul of his half-brother, of whose murder in Denmark he had a
presentiment that proved well founded.
L Another day, as some merchantmen
L were sailing smoothly past the island, he said to some of
the numerous visitors that hermits invariably attract, ` Do you not see
the monster following those ships ?'
L They then perceived the figure of a woman gliding in a cloud
on the sea. ` That woman,' he continued, will presently strike the sea
and raise a storm that will engulf the vessels and most of their crews.'
Before long came the news that the ships had indeed been driven on the
sands and rocks, nearly all hands being lost. We are not told that the
saint essayed to exorcise the fatal phantom ; a mariner subsequently
ascribed his escape from shipwreck to St. Henry's intercession. A
drunken monk of Tynemouth was dumbfounded .when ` the hermit of Coquet
Isle ' named the place and the hour of his last debauch. A priest in the
immediate neighbourhood was lying dangerously ill : as St. Henry
approached his house
L he heard the demons gloating over their sure possession of
his soul, alleging the priest had only done one good deed in all his
life. With some difficulty he convinced them that the one good deed was
of such a nature as to outweigh all the bad ones ; such was their
disappointment that the demons placed no further hindrance in the way of
the priest's recovery and reformation. Except for a pilgrimage to
Durham, to the shrine of the saint he strove to emulate, this is the
only mention of St. Henry quitting his island.
In the winter of 1126-1127, the pain caused by his ulcerated
knee became intense, but St. Henry would not allow any one to enter his
cell. He passed the cold days and long nights all alone,
L without fire or light, in
cheerful contentment. On Sunday, the 16th of January, a man
L on the island thought he heard two choirs of angels in the
air chanting alternate verses of the Te Deum. The hymn ceased, the
hermit's bell rang ; the monk of the island hastened to the cell and
found St. Henry seated on a stone holding the bell-rope, in all the calm
of sleep—life had passed away, a mortuary candle that the saint had had
no means of lighting was burning at his side.
L After a very necessary ablution, the body acquired the
whiteness of snow. The parishioners were determined to place it in a
shrine in their own church,
L no doubt at Warkworth. As they were conveying it to the
mainland a thick fog lowered over the sea and they lost their way. They
landed near another church,
L perhaps that of Woodhorn, in which the body rested that
night. St. Henry, it was declared, now appeared in a vision and directed
that it should be carried to Tynemouth the first thing the next morning
before the neighbourhood had time to reassemble and defend what they
regarded as their precious heritage. At Tynemouth the monks buried it
with all honour a little to the south of St. Oswin's shrine.
L
A century later another hermit, Martin by name, a man
of a mechanical turn of mind, entered into a speculation which might
have had a tragic, and did come to an abrupt conclusion, for a windmill
which he had erected on the island aroused the jealousy of Robert fitz
Roger (died 1214), who thought that the trade of his own mills at
Warkworth would suffer.
| Accustomed to act as if he were prince of the whole
country, he sent thirty men with mattocks and axes to
destroy the objectionable mill. Martin was too frightened to
say anything ; the protests of his Gehazi nearly cost him
his life. After all, the chronicler adds, many people
thought it was not the right thing for a professed hermit to
speculate in a windmill, as mills, like shows, were apt to
harbour promiscuous society.
N |
In the list of fortalices in 1415 the tower of Coket-eland
belonged to the prior of Tynemouth.
N In 1430 Roger Thornton, the opulent Newcastle merchant, when
making his will, amongst many other benefactions, gave `to Coketeland j
fother leed.' In addition to an annuity of £6 13s. 4d. given by his ancestors, Henry, the second earl of
Northumberland, on the 25th of August, 1442, granted 26s. 8d. a year for
the clothing of two monks and an augmentation of 40s. a year, making in
all £10, on the condition that the prior and convent of Tynemouth should
find at their own charges two monks, in orders, to celebrate mass or
masses and other divine offices or services and pray daily within the
chapel of Coquet Island for the souls of the said lord and Alianor, his
wife.
N
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The buildings
which now exist on the island are in the occupation of the Trinity
House, and comprise a tower used as a lighthouse, with various store,
lamp and cleaning rooms, and cottages for the attendants. The buildings
so occupied have been adapted to and are built chiefly on the
foundations of previous work ; they received their present form about
1840.
There is incorporated in the modern cottages a
considerable extent of ancient work, which appears to be of one date. It
can be easily traced, and is shown on the plan ; the total length of the
buildings from east to west being about 95 feet. The chief feature is
the vaulted chamber, which occupies the western half of the range : this
chamber is 14 feet 3 inches in width, and the vaulting, four-centered in
form, extends to 43 feet ; the side walls are 3 feet 3 inches thick, and
are pierced by three small windows with widely splayed jambs, the
external portions of which have been destroyed. In the west wall are two
straight joints indicating a former opening at the place. On the east
side of the entrance doorway is a buttress-like projection ; it contains
a newel-staircase leading to an upper floor. Above the vaulted chamber,
to the extent of three-fourths of its length, are some modern apartments
; the remaining portion at the east end is covered by a flat roof
enclosed on the north and south sides by fragments of ancient walling,
including the chamfered and rebated jambs of two small window openings.
The eastern portion of the range of buildings was narrower than the
western. Some ancient walling extends along its north side and at the
east end, in the latter is a window opening with double chamfered jambs
grooved for glass ; the width of this opening is
4 feet, and must consequently have been filled by mullions and tracery.
The sill of this window is only 3 feet below the level of the upper
floor over the vaulted chamber, indicating that the eastern portion of
the building was very high, probably almost if not quite equal to the
height of two floors of the western portion. On the north side of the
buildings just described, and about midway in their length, is a
projection measuring on the ground floor about 8 feet square ; it may be
of solid masonry ; it is not now accessible. On three sides of the
exterior of this projection there is a chamfered oversailing course, and
between it and the north wall of the main buildings are some arched
oversailing courses bridging the angle.
N On the upper floor the plan of this projection is very
unusual, it comprises two small (6 feet by 3 feet 6 inches) or one large
divided chamber, with a small window on the east side, and on the south
the chamfered and rebated jamb of a door opening and a portion of the
threshold stone. In the east jamb of the door is a bar-hole 5 inches
square by 3 feet 6 inches long, an unusual feature for an interior door.
There is a flue 14 inches by 11 inches in the thickness of the wall ; it
is indicated on the plan. These walls only attain to a height of 4 feet
above the floor level.
Decay and the action of the authorities of the Trinity
House have so destroyed the old work that it is not easy to determine
the original use of the buildings. It is possible that the east window
and gable are those of a chapel, and the small chamber on the north may
have been a priest's cell protected by the door with a bar-hole, and
approached by a stair within the chapel, and that in the vaulted
chamber, and the accommodation provided above it, we have the buildings
mentioned in the Ministers' Accounts at the dissolution of the
monasteries. The occupants of the east end of the upper floor of the
western portion of the buildings could, if desired, command a view of
the interior of the chapel, as was the case in many domestic buildings,
including the chapel of Warkworth donjon.
On close inspection the lighthouse tower, to the height
of about 30 feet, appears to be of ancient masonry. It has been
modernized almost beyond recognition by the Trinity House contractors,
who increased the height and thickness of the walls, but did not quite
obliterate portions of the jambs of two windows.
N
Among sundry fragments lying near the buildings are the stones, one a
grave cover, the other apparently a squint, which no doubt occupied a
position at the west end of the chapel, perhaps in conjunction with the
cell mentioned above. |
With the site of
Tynemouth priory the island in 1550 was granted to John Dudley, earl of
Warwick, afterwards duke of Northumberland ;
N after its return to the Crown on his attainder it became a
resort of the unruly and of law-breakers. In 1569 Rowland Forster,
captain of Wark, on examination, states that :
| He had in his
house at Wark, about two years past, before the going of the
soldiers to Newhaven, one Thomas, a Scotts man, and then the
said Thomas did take in hand to coyne ' hard heddes,'
N the which he cowld not bring to any perfection
then, and required me to get him a place of more secretness
to work more at liberty . . . . Before I had got hym another
place, one Barber, a soldier of Barwick, which was
acquaynted with the said Thomas before, did bring one Arthur
in the night time to my house to the said Thomas, and said
he could skill in the same art, and they both did there put
in use to have stamped `hard hedds,' and could bring it to
no perfection, and thereupon I put them in a place called
the Cokett Iland, and there was the space of twenty days and
more, and yet could not bring it to no perfection that was
good, and having made thereof to the value of ten pounds, I
took the same and threw it away, and caused them to swear on
a book that they should never use that art again, and so
they and I departed and had never more to doo.
N |
On the 7th of October, 1609, James I. granted the
island with the chapel thereon, a barn, etc., in Hauxley, to George
Salter and John Wilkinson,
N who in the December following sold the same to Edward Morley
of the Inner Temple and Robert Morgan of London ; and they, on the 26th
of January, 1609/10, resold it to Sir William Bowes of Streatlam.
N In the following year Bowes granted a twenty-one years'
lease to Francis Jessop and others, in which, after reserving the right
to dig stone and to carry it away by ship for his own use, he covenants
that the lessees shall disburse £150 `in making a dock or small haven
N for a ship in some part of the said island'; also the lessor
was, after the lessees had recouped themselves £400, to have one-third
part of the yearly gains from the stone trade in the island, and
reserved power to re-enter if the lessees should take less in any one
year than 500 tons of stone.
N
George Whitehead, writing to the earl of Northumberland
from Warkworth on the 21st of June, 1609, after speaking of the
difficulties to be overcome in obtaining building stone from the quarry
at Brotherwick, says :
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We shall, with beinge a little behouldinge to Sr
William Bowes, furnish ourselves at Coket Iland as well as
heare with lesse trouble and chardge yf Mr. Penne [the
master mason] shall lyke the stone, which Sr
William Bowes his workman assures me will service your
lordship very well. Ther is even nowe at this instante a
ship of vijxx toones, ladinge the same stone for
Holande and wilbe despacht within eyght dayes.
N |
The stone was required to make or repair the
battlements at Syon house. The stone quarried at Coquet Island was
recommended as being most suitable for the battlements at Syon,
N and stone obtained at Walbottle the best adapted for paving.
'Cocket Ilande stone is a very stronge and sounde weather stone,
reasonable white and weares the whiter in workinge, and may be wone and
shipped at iiijd ob. the foote, and the fittest stone
in the northe for your lordship's buildinge : this stone is to be had by
the consent of Mrs. Bowes after this yeare, but now of Sr
William Bowes.'
The island was the scene of one of the acts of the
drama of the Civil War. Colonel Curset, a commander in the Scottish
army, in A True Relation of the Scots taking of Cocket Iland on
the 12th of February, 1644/5, wrote as follows :
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Whereas there are twenty thousand Scots already in
England, and there are twelve thousand more mustering in
Scotland, they have already possest themselves of all the
east part of Northumberland and the forts and castles
betweene Barwicke and Tinmouth. They have taken the isle of
Cocket, and the garrison thereof with seventy commanders and
other common souldiers, seven peeces of ordnance, and all
their ammunition, and have placed a garrison of their owne
men therein.
N |
A very rare little book printed in London in 1653
contains the following passage copied almost verbatim from a Dutch book
on navigation, printed in Amsterdam, circa 1630, by Jacob and Casparus
Loots-man, entitled The Lightning Colomm or Sea Mirrour :
The Cocker Island is a very little island, and not
high, it lyeth about a halfe league from the land, you may
come to an ankor in it for an east-south and south-east
wind, but the wind coming to the northwards of the east maketh there a bad road, for you must lye betwixt the island
and the maine land, where you have no shelter for a north
wind. On the south side of the island the ground is foul,
and a little to the southwards of the island runneth off a
foul ledge of rocks
N from the shore untill thwart or past the island.
He that cometh from the southwards must keep the coast of
Bambrough without the island, or else he should not faile to
saile upon the point of that foresaid ledge.
Betwixt the ledge and the island it is also very narrow, so
that a man standing at low water mark upon the rocks of this
ledge, should almost be able to cast with a stone to the
island. For to sail in there, take heed unto these marks
hereafter described: There standeth a house upon the
seaside, which is a salt-kettle,
N and also a castle
N somewhat further in within the land, which doth
shew it selfe high enough, bring them one in the other, and
then they shall stand somewhat more north then west from
you, and run in so right with them, and so you shall run in
amidst the channell, between both, being come within, edge
up behind the island, and ankor there in five or six
fathom.
N |
The island and its appurtenants in the village of Hauxley were sold in
1675 by William Eure of New Elvet (grandson of Sir William Bowes, the
purchaser) to David Nairn, M.D., of Newcastle, subject to a mining lease
held by Martin Fenwick of Kenton.
N Six years later, on the 4th of
August, 1681, it was resold by Nairn to John Kelley,
N who possessed
lands at Chevington and at other places. On the 2nd of May, 1734, John
Kelley
N (grandson of the first-named John Kelley) and Elizabeth, his
wife, in consideration of £337 10s., sold to Robert Widdrington of
Hauxley, Coquet Island, and the chapel thereon, and certain lands more
particularly described in Hauxley.
N
Horsley, writing about 1730, says that the island was uninhabited,
though there were remains of houses and a tower,
N but seventeen years
later another writer says that there were ` hutts for the diggers of
sea-coal, of which here is great plenty. Vast flocks of wild fowl
continually harbour and lay their eggs on this island, by the sale of
which the fishermen make great advantages, as well as by the fish which
they catch here in abundance.'
N
In 1753 John Widdrington of Hauxley sold the island to Hugh, earl of
Northumberland, but retained the parcels of land on the mainland ; it
now forms part of the Percy estates, but is leased to the master and
brethren of the Trinity House.
Wallis, writing in 1769, says of Coquet Island that :
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The island is about a mile in circumference, and a mile and a quarter
from the mainland, stored with rabbets. It hath pit-coal, as mentioned
by Leland; also white free-stone and slates, the former of different
fineness, the worst with some red moleculae, the latter usually about
three-quarters of an inch thick. On the west side have been salt-pans,
about sixty yards from which are the ruins of the monastic cell and
chapel, and just below them is a bank of factitious sand, of a
remarkable brightness, the dissolution of silvery rag-stone, of which
there are large strata on the shore between Warkworth and Alnmouth,
often left bare and in view after storms and high tides. Hard by, upon a
rock, grows plenty of rape, probably first brought there by some
shipwreck. N |
Some years ago
an attempt was made to replace the native breed by the white Angora
rabbit, but the experiment was not successful. The rabbit, the tern, and
the eider duck were banished on the building of the lighthouse, and the
seals—which frequented or inhabited the northern part of the island in
sufficient numbers to cause the fishermen great trouble by taking salmon
out of their nets—were shot down or banished by the pleasure-seekers
brought some thirty years ago in steam tugs from the Tyne.
A French family ascribes its origin to Coquet Island.
N
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