Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey

The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, known simply as Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey (Latin: Monasterii Wirimutham-Gyruum), was a Benedictine double monastery in the Kingdom of Northumbria, England. Its first house was St Peter's, Monkwearmouth, on the River Wear, founded in AD 674–5. It became a double house with the foundation of St Paul's, Jarrow, on the River Tyne in 684–5. Both Monkwearmouth (in modern-day Sunderland) and Jarrow are now in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear. The abbey became a centre of learning, producing one of the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholars, Bede. Both houses were sacked by Viking raiders and in the 9th century the abbey was abandoned. After the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century there was a brief attempt to revive it. Early in the 14th century the two houses were refounded as cells of Durham Priory. In 1536 they were surrendered to the Crown and dissolved. Since the dissolution the two abbey churches have survived as the parish churches of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow. The two sets of conventual buildings fell into ruin. At Jarrow substantial ruins survive next to St Paul's Church. The site of each house is a scheduled monument. On the Monkwearmouth site St Peter's Church is a Grade I listed building. On the Jarrow site both St Paul's Church and the monastery ruins are Grade I listed buildings. In 2011 the United Kingdom nominated the entire Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey site for UNESCO to grant designate as a World Heritage Site.