Hexham Abbey

Hexham Abbey Project 

Project

Welcome to the Hexham Abbey Project

Hexham Abbey is one of the most inspiring buildings in the Northeast of England and is seen by many as the county church of Northumberland. It was founded in 674 AD by St Wilfrid and still contains its original Saxon crypt, which is one of the finest Saxon buildings to have survived intact anywhere in the world.

The Hexham Abbey Project aims to take advantage of an unprecedented opportunity to acquire some of the former monastic buildings that surround the Abbey – which were lost to the Church at the time of the Reformation – and develop them to allow greatly improved access to the Abbey’s remarkable heritage and provide a much needed resource that will significantly enhance:

• the experience of the many visitors who come to the Abbey, the town of Hexham and the wider region; and
• the facilities available for use by the local community.

These pages provide a brief overview of this ambitious project, which we estimate will cost more than £7m to develop. We have been greatly encouraged by the response to our initial feasibility studies and are now developing more detailed proposals that will help us secure the support of potential funders.

As part of this work we are currently preparing a detailed Conservation Management Plan. This aims to capture all aspects of the Abbey's heritage, identify why they are important and to whom and incorporate the information into a comprehensive plan that will help us to take the best possible care of our remarkable place of worship, now and in the future. We have recently invited a wide range of stakeholders to review a draft of our Conservation Management Plan with the benefit of their own particular experience and knowledge and to let us know of any changes they might recommend. A copy of the draft plan is [available here] . If you would like to contribute to its further development, we would be delighted to receive your views before Wednesday 1st July 2009.

We hope you will find this site of interest. If you have any comments or would like to become involved as the project develops, please [contact either Peter or Fiona, our project managers].