Nendrum monastery was built in the 7th Century on the largest island on Strangford lough, and although a place of spiritual refuge, it became the backbone of the local community.

Gardens, orchards, pastures and fields for growing crops existed alongside a guesthouse for visitors and, perhaps most impressively, a tidal mill for making flour.

Nendrum offered more than spiritual nourishment to the local population; it offered employment, food, trading and a place to meet.

In many ways it could be seen as an early prototype for a town, such was its many functions and its position as the organising centre of local people’s lives.

Places like Nendrum are the most obvious physical marks left by Christianity on our landscape, but other legacies are more difficult to spot.

For Nendrum was such a success that even its circular monastic style influenced the layout of the modern city of Armagh.