Lindisfarne Gospels returning to North East in 2022

The manuscript will temporarily leave its home at the British Library

The 1,300-year-old Lindisfarne Gospels will return to the north-east of England next year.

The famed manuscript, which dates back to Anglo-Saxon England, will go on show at Newcastle's Laing Art Gallery for three months from September.

When the sacred text was last in the region in 2013, about 100,000 people saw it at Durham University.

It will be loaned by the British Library in London where it is usually on display.

The manuscript was created by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, in honour of St Cuthbert early in the 8th Century.

It will be the fifth time it has been displayed in the North East since the mid-1980s, having previously been at the Laing Art Gallery in 1996 and 2000.

A supporting exhibition will be staged at the nearby City Library.

Durham University said its 2013 exhibition was a resounding success with 1,200 visitors per day

Councillor Simon Henig, co-chair of the North East Culture Partnership which co-ordinated the bid to host the gospels, said it would form the centrepiece of linked events across the region.

"The Lindisfarne Gospels is many things to many people but, first and foremost, it is a book created in the North and of the North, by the community of Lindisfarne.

"Curators will explore the ways in which the gospel book can bring people together today by inspiring thinking about who we are and where we come from, about identity, creativity, learning and sense of place."

Roly Keating, chief executive of the British Library, said the manuscript "includes the earliest surviving example of the gospels in English" and was "one of the great national and indeed international treasures" in the organisation's care.

He added it was "renowned for the intricacy and beauty of its decoration".