The house at Monkwearmouth grew and prospered, a home of arts and science and religion. There Bede began to acquire his wonderful knowledge, and John the Chanter founded his great school of music. Seven years after its foundation (A.D. 681) expansion became a necessity, and a new grant of land was obtained, this time at Jarrow, on the south bank of the Tyne. Seventeen persons, clerical and lay, were sent thither, their leader being Ceolfrid, to whose care Bede, already for two years an inmate of the older monastery, was committed. Soon after this event Biscop departed on his last visit to Rome, leaving his stalwart kinsman Eosterwini to rule at Monkwearmouth. He was absent for more than three years, an eventful time, during which both houses suffered grievously from a visitation of the plague. Eosterwini was its most notable victim, whilst at Jarrow nearly the whole convent was stricken down. At that place, as an anonymous writer informs us, only Ceolfrid and one boy, obviously Bede, were left to chant the daily services. The above facts will explain the delay in the consecration of the great church at Jarrow, which, according to a contemporary inscription still preserved, was not dedicated till the fourth year of Ceolfrid’s presidency. Of this church only some stones now remain. A smaller church had, however, been first built and consecrated, and it is this which forms the chancel of Jarrow Church to-day. Its dimensions do not suggest any special meaning. Twenty-eight feet to the west of it, and lying precisely in the same right line, stood at one time a fabric precisely similar to that of St. Peter’s, Monkwearmouth, the same, apparently, in length and breadth and height, and lighted by windows of the same type and in the same position. Annexed to it on the north and south were a number of apartments, undoubtedly to be identified with the _porches_ in Bede’s account of Monkwearmouth, chambers opening by round-headed arches into the church itself. The arches on the north side, and vestiges of three rooms on the south, remained as late as the year 1769. Probably one such porch as this stood at the eastern end of the building; this we know was the case at Monkwearmouth. These apartments, walled off as they were from each other, would be used for prayer and study, and sometimes as places of sepulture. They were probably constructed in imitation of the chambers round Solomon’s temple.