page_title: St Bees
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: St Bees / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: St Bees Priory from the west in autumn sun
context_page_description: St Bees is a coastal village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Copeland district of Cumbria, England, on the Irish Sea. It was originally in the historic county of Cumberland.
  Within the parish is St Bees Head which is the only Heritage Coast between Wales and Scotland which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is an RSPB reserve and has the largest seabird colony in north-west England. St Bees Lighthouse stands on the North Head which is the most westerly point of Northern England.
  St Bees is a popular holiday destination due to the coastline and proximity to the Western Lake District. In the village there is the Norman St Bees Priory, and St Bees School founded in 1583. The Wainwright Coast to Coast Walk starts from the north end of St Bees Bay. The village is served by the Cumbrian Coast Railway.
context_section_description: Evidence of Mesolithic and Bronze Age habitation has been found in St Bees, but nothing of the Roman occupation.
  The name St Bees is a corruption of the Norse name for the village, which is given in the earliest charter of the Priory as "Kyrkeby becok", which can be translated as the "Church town of Bega", relating to the local Saint Bega. She was said to be an Irish princess who fled across the Irish Sea to where St Bees now lies to avoid an enforced marriage. Carved stones at the priory show that Irish-Norse Vikings settled here in the 10th century.
   
  The Normans did not reach Cumberland until 1092, and when they took over the local lordships, William Meschin, Lord of Egremont, used the existing religious site to found a Benedictine priory for a prior and six monks sometime between 1120 and 1135. The priory was subordinate to the great Benedictine monastery of St Mary at York. The magnificent Norman doorway of the priory dates from just after this time; probably about 1150.
  The priory had a great influence on the area. The monks worked the land, fished, and extended the priory buildings. The ecclesiastical parish of St Bees was large and stretched to Ennerdale, Loweswater, Wasdale and Eskdale. The coffin routes from these outlying areas to the mother church in St Bees can still be followed in places.
  The priory was closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries on the orders of Henry VIII in 1539. The nave and transepts of the monastic church have continued in use as the parish church to the present day, but much of the extensive monastic buildings were plundered or fell into decay.
  Remarkably, the small village of St Bees produced two of the archbishops of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I: Edmund Grindal; Archbishop of Canterbury and Edwin Sandys; Archbishop of York.
  In about 1519 Edmund Grindal was born in Cross Hill House, St Bees, which still exists, and is marked with a plaque. He was probably educated at the priory across the valley. A devout Protestant, he made his mark in the reign of Edward VI, but had to flee to Strasbourg when the Catholic Mary I ascended the throne. On Mary's death the country once again became Protestant, and Grindal became Bishop of London, Archbishop of York and then Archbishop of Canterbury. His undoing was opposing Queen Elizabeth I on liberal religious meetings and he was suspended. He died in 1583 still in disgrace, but, virtually on his death bed, he founded St Bees School which existed until July 2015, when it temporarily closed; The School re-opened on 6 September 2018. The present primary school in the village was established in the 1870s.
caption: St Bees Priory
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