New start for Way of Life trail beside River Tees at Gainford

More than 1,000 years ago, monks carrying St Cuthbert’s body to escape the marauding Vikings had been sheltering Ripon, but had received word that the coast was clear for them to make a return to Durham.

They forded the River Tees at Gainford back into Cuthbert’s own county but were so weary after their struggles with the water that they popped the coffin down on the riverbank beside the church. Miraculously, Cuthbert miraculously uncorked a spring of healthy, healing water out of the ground with which they refreshed and renewed themselves.

And so on Sunday – Palm Sunday – the bishops will start the Way of Life pilgrimage from the well.

The Way of Life is one of six Northern Saints Trails that were created in 2020 for the church’s year of pilgrimage. However, the pandemic prevented a major fanfare last year and so Sunday’s socially distanced outdoor service marks a new start.

The ford that Cuthbert’s crew crossed was one of two. It is the one that gives the village its name: “gegyn” being an Old English word meaning direct or straight.

By contrast, the ford a little to the west crossed the river diagonally. It was known as “the barley ford”, which has been contracted to Barforth, the name of the ancient settlement (complete with dovecote) on the Yorkshire bank.

A 1920s postcard showing the old ferry at Gainford

There is a nice story that tells another version of how these settlements got their names. It says that the south Durham villagers were battling over control of the fords with their north Yorkshire neighbours. The Yorkies barred the western ford to stop anyone using it, and so it became Barforth, while the Durham people gained control of the straight ford – hence Gainford.

For those who didn’t want to get their feet wet in the fords, there were two ferryboats that crossed the river. Indeed, on the Yorkshire side of the river is a stretch known as Boat Pool, a bank known as Boat Scar, and a sunken track called Boat House Lane.

The most enduring ferry was next to the straight ford. A boatman, Bob Carr, worked the crossing until 1935, charging one penny each way. He lived on the Gainford side, in Watergate, and on the Yorkshire side was a bell for passengers to use to summon him.

The first mention of Gainford is in 801AD when Eda or Edwine, a Northumberland chief, was buried in a monastery “ad Gegenforda”. That wooden monastery grew into a Saxon stone church, but when William the Conqueror seized control after 1066, he gave Gainford to one of his followers, Guy Baliol.

Looking across the green to Gainford church in the 1880s

Baliol in turn gave the church to St Mary’s Abbey of York whose monks rebuilt it in 13th Century, and so it is called St Mary’s Church and the watery spout on the edge of the churchyard is called St Mary’s Well.

St Mary's Well at Gainford. Picture: James Evans

Sunday’s service will start at 3pm in the churchyard and move to the well to mark the launch of the Way of Life. Rt Rev Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham, will return on Monday, March 29, at 9.30am with his wife, Rosemary, to walk the 29 mile trail with the walk’s creator, David Potts.

They will aim to be in Ingleton church at 11am, West Auckland at 1pm and Escomb church at 3.15pm.

On Tuesday, March 30, they will set out from Bishop Auckland at 9.30am and call at Byers Green church at 11am, Whitworth church at noon, Tudhoe church at 1.15pm and Sunderland Bridge church at 2.45pm. The Way of Life will then take them up the 224 Doom Steps to the top of Mountjoy where, for the first time, they get a view of the cathedral – the object of their pilgrimage. They aim to be at St Oswald’s Church at 4.15pm and the cathedral for 5pm.

For more information on the trails, go to northernsaints.com, or go along to Gainford on Sunday.

KNOWING our love of roadside relics, John Hill of Darlington, draws our attention to this interesting stone which is in a wall near the “Gainford Island” – the raised plot outside the old Lord Nelson Inn which greets people arriving from the Darlington stone.

The old roadside stone near the Lord Nelson. Picture: John Hill

The stone gives the distances to London, Durham, Darlington, Staindrop and Barnard Castle. Can anyone tell us how old it is?

The Lord Nelson in Gainford in its serving days. It was once known as the Yorkshire Stingo. What was a Yorkshire stingo?

THE Lord Nelson closed about five years ago. It was built about 1748 when it was known as the Bunch of Grapes, and it became the Nelson after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Inbetween, it was known as the Yorkshire Stingo. What was a Yorkshire stingo?