Chris Watson, In St Cuthbert’s Time (2013), a four-track album of mixed field-recordings that’s now free on YouTube. It can also be purchased as a high-quality FLAC download or had via Amazon Music for £7.

“The Sounds of Lindisfarne and St. Cuthbert. To celebrate the exhibition of the Lindisfarne Gospels at Durham Cathedral, award–winning wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson has researched and recreated the sonic environment of the Holy Island as it might have been experienced by St. Cuthbert (c. 634 – 687 A.D.).”

Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert is also a fascinating insight into life in a wild Britain that was still only nominally Christian, and in which the peasants would still openly jeer at the misfortunes of the monks and curse them for taking away the old pagan ways of their ancestors. In fact, it’s quite a page-turner in its pre-PC 1955 Penguin translation (not the best, apparently, but the most readable). Who knew Bede could be fun to read?