Bill and I had ourselves a little getaway over Easter weekend. We decided to drive up to Northumberland, an English county on the east coast, just south of the Scottish boarder, and check out several of the key sights the county has to offer.
As you read in our last post, we spent our first day driving up and visiting Alnwick Castle. That night we made our way to a sweet little bed and breakfast on a farm on the coast. The only downside to the whole day was that all of the restaurants our BandB host suggested were booked solid, so we ate somewhere that had availability. I'll just say that I had probably the worst meal I've ever had since living in England and we'll leave it at that…
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| Castle on the left, mainland to the right |
The next morning Bill and I got up bright and early and had ourselves a delicious breakfast and then hopped in the car to head over to Holy Island while the road was still passable. Visitors to the island must strictly follow the tide map as the road to Holy Island is only safe to cross during low tide. More on that in a separate post; today I'll focus on Lindisfarne Castle.
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| Holy Island selfie! |
The island was founded by St. Aiden in 635AD and became one of the main centers for Christianity during Anglo-Saxon England. In Tudor times, the island was a key defense location during Scottish/English boarder skirmishes, and in 1543 over 2000 soldiers were stationed on the island to help subdue the crazy Scotts :-)
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| Hiking up to the castle |
A fortress was built in 1570 on Beblowe Crag, and that fortress is the basis of the still-standing castle. After the unification of England in Scotland in 1603, soldiers remained in the castle, but it eventually went empty and then into disrepair. In the early 1900s, a rich magazine owner fell in love with the empty castle, bought it, and employed his favorite architect to spruce it up so it could be used a summer holiday cottage. By the late 1920s, he sold it, it was sold again, and by the 1940s it was given over to the national trust.
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| Getting a wee bit closer |
The castle, all the way on the tippy top of the crag, would have made lounging about outside quite difficult as it was quite cold and extremely windy. Plus, there's not a lot of outside up there, only a wee walking path up and then a small patio. But the Edwardian interior looked nice and cozy.
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| Castle scullery (kitchen) |
The rooms were all fairly small, but well thought out. The scullery had all that the kitchen staff would have needed, as well as the winding gear and weights for the still-working portcullis (gate) to the lower battery. It was still a working castle, after all.
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| Castle dining room |
The dining room was, as usual, one of the main entertaining rooms and it was said many a champagne bottle had been drunk in here. The fireplace also hides an older bread oven that was used back when it was a fort full of soldiers.
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| Castle sitting room |
The sitting room was also cozy and had a good number of windows along one side. They had an old, crackly recording of a 1920s song playing quietly from the victrola. Upon closer inspection, the victrola wasn't actually working and it took me a minute to realize there was a small speaker down the amplifier horn!
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| Sitting room detail |
The bedrooms were austere, but had everything one would have needed back then. I heard a mother talking to her 4 or 5 year old son, explaining how the newspaper and books were some of the few pastimes the occupants would have had back when they lived in the castle. The boy turned to her and said incredulously, "They didn't even have an iPad?"
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| One of the castle's bedrooms |
They may not have had an iPad, but each bedroom had at least one window like this one that the inhabitant could look out and watch the clouds roll by. That's good for what, five whole minutes of entertainment?
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| Looking out onto Holy Island and beyond |
Or, you could always take a hip bath. That's not a hipster's bath, but a bath where you would have water all the way up to your hip!
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| Another castle bedroom with hip bath (towel draped over the end) |
Once we reached the top floor of the castle, we realized there was one more outdoor space, the small balcony. The views from up there were very beautiful, but unfortunately, it was even windier than at the castle's entrance three stories below.
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| View from the castle's balcony |
On our way out, Bill had to take one last look at the castle's still-working wind indicator. If you look closely, you can see that it's indicating the wind is blowing south. When we first arrived, the wind was blowing west-southwest. While Bill was interested in how it worked, I got a kick out of seeing that Holy Island was in the center and the defeated Spanish armada was all around the island being pursued by the English fleet.
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| Wind-o-meter |
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