the customs of the monks of Lindisfarne, where he had been educated. And
when for many years he [Cedd] had administered the episcopate in the
aforesaid province, and also had taken charge of this monastery, over
which he set superiors, it happened that coming to this same monastery at
a time of mortality, he was attacked by bodily infirmity and died. At
first, indeed, he was buried outside, but in process of time a church was
built of stone in the same monastery, in honour of the blessed mother of
God, and in that church his body was laid on the right side of the altar."
Cedd's death took place in 664, and Ceadda or Chad, one of his brothers,
succeeded him as he had desired.

[Illustration: Saxon Sundial at Kirkdale. (_From a rubbing by Mr J.
Romilly Allen, F.S.A._)]

Nothing remains of the buildings of this early monastery, and what
happened to them, and what caused their disappearance, is purely a matter
of conjecture. We can only surmise that they were destroyed during the
Danish invasions of the ninth century.

At Kirkdale church, which is situated close to the cave already described,
there was discovered about the year 1771 a sundial bearing the longest
known inscription of the Anglo-Saxon period. The discoverer was the Rev.
William Dade, rector of Barmston, in the East Riding, and a letter of
great length, on the stone, from the pen of Mr J. C. Brooke, F.S.A. of the
Herald's College, was read at the Society of Antiquaries in 1777.

The sundial, without any gnomon, occupies the central portion of the
stone, which is about 7 feet in length, and the inscription is closely
packed in the spaces on either side.