Took a couple of days off at the end of last week and on our travels we ended up at a favourite place of mine, Heysham on the Lancashire coast.
The part of Heysham I particularly like is St Patrick’s Chapel, the remains of an early 8th century church built on a site occupied since the 6th century.
At the site are a series of rock cut graves with sockets for a grave marker, probably just a simple wooden cross. I also learned something new – the graves feature on the cover of a Black Sabbath album, their Greatest Hits from 2000.
Near to the chapel is the parish church, St Peters, also dating back to Saxon times, there remains the re-errected stump of a Saxon cross in the grounds.
The church itself is home to a number of locally found artefacts. A small fragmentary early mediaeval chalice is mounted in a wall niche.
The church also displays a large Viking hog back stone, a grave cover that has a series of images that depict both the light and dark sides of life.
