There has been a church on this site over for 1300 years since Queen Etheldreda made a grant of lands to Wilfrid, Bishop of York c.674. Of Wilfrid’s Benedictine abbey, the Saxon crypt and apse still remain. In Norman times an Augustinian priory replaced Wilfrid’s abbey: the church you see today is mainly that building of about 1170-1250, in the Early English style of architecture. The choir, north and south transepts and the cloisters, where canons studied and meditated, date from this period. The east end was rebuilt in 1860 and the nave, whose walls incorporate some of the earlier church, was built in 1908. In 1996 an additional chapel was created at the east end of the north choir aisle. Named ‘St Wilfrid’s Chapel’, it offers a place for prayer or quiet reflection. Since the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537 the Abbey has been the parish church of Hexham and today is still a centre for worship and witness to the Christian faith.
Telephone: 01434 602031