We spent the first week of our vacation (holiday) in Northumberland.
Steve and I really like Northumberland. We were there with my extended family in 2004 and were happy to go back this year with Steve’s parents, who’d never been there. Narrow country roads wind their way to the sandy coastline past fields, through small picturesque villages. Other parts of England are pretty like this too but it seems less busy in Northumberland and feels unspoilt. There were no cities or huge roads in the area we stayed.
Our rented house was in Bamburgh which is small and pretty. It feels like a village except for the huge castle set on a rocky outcrop between the village and the ocean, visible for miles around.
Except when it’s foggy. Then you can’t even see it from Bamburgh.
The week of good weather before our visit evidently created the right conditions for thick coastal fog, what some people called a ‘sea fret’, during much of our visit. The evening we arrived was clear and we were surprised to wake up the next day to very different weather. In 2004 we didn’t encounter any fog, That wasn’t something we’d anticipated at all.
We drove inland towards Alnwick and were pleased to see that the fog didn’t reach that far. It was warm and sunny in Alnwick.
Alnwick also has a huge castle, one where some scenes from Harry Potter were filmed (the first movie in particular). It’s an old market town which still retains one of the original town gates. Fun for tourists; a bit awkward for traffic since it’s so narrow.
Based on its size Alnwick seems much more important a place than Bamburgh. I was surprised to read that Bamburgh was as important as York long ago. Powerful regional Kings ruled from Bamburgh beginning in the sixth century when King Ida the Flamebearer made it the capital of his region. Some of these Kings claimed rule over all England, although things were too unstable for that to last long. Eventually Northumbria lost its power and independence. Maybe that and Alnwick’s position along the Great North Road (although that recently was rerouted to spare Alnwick all the through traffic) explain why Alnwick is now a sizeable town and Bamburgh remained small.
On our way back from Alnwick to Bamburgh we reentered fog. It was still there the next morning so we headed inland again, this time to Cragside, an interesting house set in extensive and beautifully landscaped grounds. The fog persisted for longer but didn’t last all the way to Cragside. Cragside was built for Lord Armstrong. The design is more interesting and eccentric than most stately homes in England. Lord Armstrong was an engineer; he designed a system to provide water generated electricity for his home. At some point Lord Armstrong bought Bamburgh Castle. His descendants still live there today. They lost Cragside since it had to be given to the government to cover death duties.
People at Cragside were commenting on how hot it was the day we were there. It was hot by English standards – maybe low 80s.
On the way back we stopped at Edlingham quickly to see the old church and ruined castle. We reentered fog soon after that.
The next day, more fog, so we headed inland again, this time to Ford and Etal, two small villages that have declared themselves a tourist attraction. We parked at Heatherslaw where there’s a working watermill and light railway to Etal. We were going to take the railway but it was so busy there were no seats. Perhaps because school holidays in England had now begun and everyone was looking for things to do away from the fog. So we walked to Etal instead. There was a pretty footpath with views of the Cheviot Hills across the fields.
On Tuesday we went to Alnwick Gardens. I didn’t think the flowers were that amazing, compared with other places I’ve been, but the water features were excellent and the poison garden tour was awesome. The poison garden tour guides are college age young men who were very funny and entertaining.
On Wednesday we happily awoke to a clear morning – perfect because I was hoping to go around Bamburgh Castle that day. We had wonderful views of the coast from the castle. Later that day when the tide was low enough we crossed to Lindisfarne/Holy Island and had dinner there.
On Thursday we went to Berwick upon Tweed, the northernmost town in England. It was not as pretty a town as Alnwick, but we did accomplish some shopping we wanted to do during that week. We drove into Scotland after lunch since we were so close, but didn’t stop anywhere. On the way back Steve saw signs to Flodden Field, an important battle site, and wanted to stop there. It was raining quite hard, evidently the same conditions that the battle was fought under. According to the sign, the Scots were defeated by the English because they made the mistake of coming down into the valley. The valley was boggy and they found themselves knee deep in mud.
On Friday we left Northumberland and drove down to Wales to spend a week there with my extended family. I’ll write about that when I’ve uploaded those photos.
You can see all the Northumberland photos below. If you click on a photo it will show the description of it. If you move your mouse to the top right corner you can adjust the slideshow speed there.