The seventh-century Twin Monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow, North East England is to be the UK's latest nomination for World Heritage Site status.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has put forward the monastery to join a list of 28 existing World Heritage Sites located across the UK. UNESCO is to make a final decision on the application next year, which will be the last to be submitted from the 1999 UK Tentative List.

If successful, the Twin Monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow will join sites including the City of Bath and the Tower of London that have been awarded World Heritage Site status. Hunt said: "The Twin Monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow looking out on to the North Sea coast, had a profound influence on learning in the Middle Ages and played a huge part in the emergence of European identity."