[9] In 655, King Oswiu of Northumbria sent his one-year-old daughter Ælfflæd to stay with Hilda, "to be consecrated to God in perpetual virginity",[10] an important gesture.

However, after Hilda left Hartlepool Abbey it, and the village surrounding it, is not mentioned again in any known sources[13] until the 12th century,[14] and appears to have declined in importance until it was finally either sacked and destroyed by Danish Vikings around 800,[15] or possibly simply abandoned.

[16] No trace of the monastery remains today, though the monastic cemetery has been found near the site of present-day St Hilda's Church.

The first excavation began in 1833 when workmen building houses on the headland found human burials and Anglo-Saxon artefacts.

[16] Hartlepool Abbey was featured in the March 2000 episode #57 of archaeological television programme Time Team,[17] called "Nuns in Northumbria", where bones and a book clasp were found.