St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street The parish church of St Mary and St Cuthbert is a Church of England church in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England. The site has been used for worship for over 1100 years; elements of the current building are over 950 years old. The oldest surviving translation of the Gospels into English was done here, by Aldred between 947 and 968, at a time when it served as the centre of Christianity from Lothian to Teesside. The church was established to house the body of Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, Bishop of Lindisfarne from 684 to 687. After
St Cuthbert Gospel struggle against the Danes by a vision or dream he had of Cuthbert. Thereafter, the royal house of Wessex, who became the kings of England, made a point of devotion to Cuthbert, which also had a useful political message, as they came from opposite ends of the united English kingdom. Cuthbert was "a figure of reconciliation and a rallying point for the reformed identity of Northumbria and England" after the absorption of the Danish populations into Anglo-Saxon society, according to Michelle Brown. The 8th-century historian Bede wrote both a verse and a prose life of St Cuthbert around 720. He