The splendid Pevsner Northumberland volume of the Buildings of England says of Inner Farne:

'The view of it... is dramatic, and the view from it, looking over its dolerite cliffs towards the other islands or towards Bamburgh is superb.
...It is recorded by Bede that St Aidan occasionally retired to Inner Farne for solitude. St Cuthbert built himself a cell on the island and died there in AD 687. Later hermits followed him, and in 1246 a small Benedictine cell was established from Durham... The remains are all of the monastic period, and they form an intensely romantic group in this wonderful place.'

As a boy tending his flocks near Leader Water, Cuthbert had a vision, says Bede, of angels conducting the soul of St Aidan to heaven. He later became a monk under St Eata at Melrose and spread the gospel between Berwick and Galloway. In Ad 664, Cuthbert accompanied Eata to Lindisfarne. However, Cuthbert was a solitary by nature and in AD 674, he retired to Inner Farne, where he lived till 684. Having reluctantly accepted the bishopric of Lindisfarne in that year, Cuthbert quickly acquired the reputation of a wonder-worker; certainly he was a man of great charm and practical ability. He was also keenly observant of the ways of wild creatures. Bede often refers to him as 'the child of God'. He was bishop for only two years before withdrawing to Inner Farne to die.
After the Viking invasions, his remains were removed and after many wanderings found a final resting place in Durham Cathedral, where Bede is also buried. Cuthbert was the most popular saint in England before Thomas Beckett, murdered in 1170. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, however, written two centuries later the northern students in the Reeve's Tale are still swearing by St Cuthbert, and up until modern times, Cuthbert (and Aidan) have been popular northern Christian names.