Sunderland's St Peter's makes the ‘Medieval Abbey World Cup’ final - here's how to help our treasured landmark win

The “tournament” was the idea of medieval scholars Charlotte Liebelt and Lily Hawker-Yates, who recently completed their PhDs at Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent.

Through Charlotte’s Twitter page, they have put the sites to a public vote to establish which is the people’s favourite.

There are six rounds in total, including the final. Sunderland’s semi-final success came against Iona Abbey in the Inner Hebrides. It was a narrow squeak with St Peter’s taking 50.6% of the vote to Iona’s 40.4%.

This put Sunderland, together with its twin site in South Tyneside, into a four-way final against Cluny Abbey in central France, the Mar Mattai Monastery in Iraq and Minster Abbey in Kent. Voting is expected to close at noon on Saturday, 30 January and has been tight.

St Peter’s was established in AD 674 as a double monastery along with St Paul’s in Jarrow. The home of the Venerable Bede, it is named as Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in the poll.

Although Wearside history lovers will want to win the competition, the emphasis is on fun and stirring people’s interest in local history.

Speaking from her native Netherlands, Charlotte said: “This is the fourth Twitter world cup we’ve done after medieval castles, medieval saints and medieval queens.

“We got the idea from friends and colleagues of ours who had previously done a cathedral world cup. We felt it was a nice way to spread some positivity and perhaps even create some interest for medieval history.

“Our criteria were a bit flexible; as long as the site was once in use as a monastic site and dates back to medieval times, it could be included.

“We know about [Monkwearmouth-Jarrow] because Lily and I are both medievalists. Besides that we also did a lot of research of course, and as always asked Twitter for suggestions about sites to include.

“Sadly we have not visited yet. But as Bede recurs often in my PhD thesis I’d really love to visit sometime.”

You can vote for St Peter’s via Charlotte Liebelt’s Twitter page.

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