Haydon Bridge Old Church

I came across to Northumberland on Tuesday to inspect churches. One was a tiny one, barely used, nestling on a hillside above Haydon Bridge. It was replaced by a grander edifice in the 1790s, one more conveniently reached by villagers. Yet Haydon Old Church, as it is now known, remains a sparkling jewel. Sadly, the door was locked, contrary to some online reports, though a couple of telephone numbers were posted on the door from which keys might be located. Experience tells me this is a waste of time unless one knows the area (so the key can be collected) or lives close by (“sorry we are out today, can you call back tomorrow?”). Nevertheless, some windows had clear panes through which I peered, and the most remarkable item I was able to see: the font.

We dissenters of credo-baptist persuasion are generally sniffy about fonts for they are the objects over which unbelieving infants are sprinkled into the faith. This is not the place to discuss the rights and wrongs of such practices, but it is worth observing that Old Haydon’s font was once a pagan, Roman altar. So from the 1100s, when it was constructed, to the 1790s when it was superseded, children of the parish were sprinkled over an object which had once been used to offer incense to heathen gods but had been quietly reclaimed and recycled for the Living One. I am not aware of any other examples in the country, though I note that Whalley Parish Church, near our chapel, employs an altar to Mars, the war god, as a flower stand. 

There are other features of this little place which might merit a mention in the august pages of this blog, such as its being one of the resting places for the bones of St Cuthbert after the monks of Lindisfarne fled Danish invaders in the ninth century. Perhaps our re-purposed altar reminded them (if it was then being used in an earlier structure) that powerful paganism is always short lived, that the power of the gospel and the purposes of the Living God always triumph in the end. Now there is a fine encouragement for our own day, too.

Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Daniel 3:14

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