St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street conditions that an anchorite lived in when it was occupied, as well as containing Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval items found on the site. 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
St Cuthbert Gospel St Cuthbert Gospel The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only , the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been