Lindisfarne - in Modern Culture

In Modern Culture

In 1972, poet William Irwin Thompson named his Lindisfarne Association after the monastery on the island.

Lindisfarne (particularly the castle) is the setting of the Roman Polanski film Cul-de-Sac (1966) with Donald Pleasence and Lionel Stander, shot entirely on location there. The island is semi-fictionalised into "Lindisfarne Island" and the castle is "Rob Roy". There is no village. The tide rises round a car which is stuck on the causeway; also featured are the characteristic sheds made from local fishing boats, inverted and cut in half. These may still be seen on the island.

The final episode of second series of the TV series Cold Feet was filmed in Lindisfarne Castle.

Lindisfarne appears in the second episode of Robson Green's Wild Swimming Adventure, a 2009 UK TV programme. Robson Green manages to swim from the mainland to Lindisfarne Castle.

• Lindisfarne is referred to as The Holy Isle in Nancy Farmer's book "The Sea of Trolls," which also references the Norse invasion of Lindisfarne.
• Lindisfarne is where the main character of Harry goes to on pilgrimage in the book "Kingdom by the Sea" by Robert Westall. St Cuthbert, Lindisfarne, and the Viking raid, are also focal points of Westall's "The Wind Eye".
• Lindisfarena plays an important role in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories.
• Lindisfarne plays a key role in "Conqueror", the second book of the Time's Tapestry series by Stephen Baxter.
• A thinly disguised version of Lindisfarne is the setting for the Lyndesfarne Bridge quartet of modern fantasy novels by Trevor Hopkins.
• Lindisfarne is known as Holy Island and The New Beginning in "Brother in the Land" by Robert Swindells, 1984.
• The monastery and monks of Lindisfarne are an important part of British author/broadcastor Melvyn Bragg's epic, historically based novel "Credo" published in 1996.
• The sack of Lindisfarne monastery by a fleet of opportunistic Vikings is a pivotal event in Charles Barnitz' historical fantasy/adventure, The Deepest Sea (1996)
• Wells Tower's short story, "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned," is centred around a Viking raid on Lindisfarne.
• A two-part story in the Vertigo series Northlanders, for instance, concerns the destruction on the monastery.

The novel "Dragon under the Hill" by former newsreader Gordon Honeycombe is set on Holy Island

• The Quiet Isle, a location in the fictional series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, has many traits resembling Lindisfarne, including tidal based access and a monastic community.
• Freddie Frobisher, the flatulent hermit of Lindisfarne, is featured in Blackadder the second, episode Beer.
• Lindisfarne and Holy Island were used in J.P. Moore's novel "Toothless" as a staging area by the Knights Templar for an attack against the Black Yew.