Stalybridge, Cheshire to Alnwick, Northumberland

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This morning Kath made a cooked breakfast for us all. We kept asking what we could do to help, but she insisted that she had it all under control. She did at least let Bernie juice the oranges. While we were waiting for breakfast we tried to share as many tips as we could think of about Lisbon, Sintra and Porto as Robin and Sandra are off to Portugal on Monday. They are doing a tour but are travelling to Sintra independently and may have some free time in Lisbon and Porto. Hopefully we have given them some information that may prove useful to them.

After breakfast we packed out bags to head off to Northumberland for a few days. We are trying to wring the last little bit out of our holiday before we fly home next week. We farewelled Robin and Sandra and hope to see them next June … if not before. They are only across the ditch so if a great airfare came up, perhaps we will make a flying visit?? They are holding the Bolivia Ashes at the moment, so we do need to schedule a time for a tournament to contest the ashes so we can try to win them back. We will see Kath and Albert again on Friday and spend a few more days with them as our holiday comes to a close.

Ha, the plan was to visit National Trust property Washington Old Hall on our way north. We set out towards the M62 expecting to go via Uppermill and Diggle but there were roadworks so I ‘think’ we drove on minor roads more to the west?? Once we joined the motorway, we rocketed along on the M62 around the south of Leeds to connect with the M1 before joining the A1(M1) heading north.

We turned off the A1(M1) onto the A1231 arriving at Washington Old Hall about lunchtime to find the gates closed and sign ‘Sorry we are closed today’!! Damn, if we had known that was going to be the case we could have left later or we could have planned to visit somewhere else … we have plenty of other possibilities on our list!

That means no National Trust sandwiches for us today, so we found a café and had some toasties for lunch. We returned to the car to collect our cameras and went into the churchyard of the Holy Trinity Church next to the hall and took some photos over the fence! Then we wandered around the back into a very large graveyard and took a couple more photos over the back fence. It was a shame not to be able to visit properly. As the name suggests the town is the ancestral settlement of the Washington family from which George Washington descended!

Back in the car we looked at the map and there was an ‘Angel of the North’ shown nearby. I Googled it and discovered that it is a monumental sculpture beside the A1. OK, but can you only see it from the motorway, or can you actually park somewhere to photograph it?? I Googled a bit more and learnt that there is a parking area beside the monument. The site I was on suggested navigating to the postcode NE9 7TY. Bernie programmed the postcode into the SatNav and off we went.

The road/roundabout that we had to exit on was completely choked up with witch's hats so that made navigating more challenging. Then we came off at the correct exit and I said, ‘It’s right there’ and Bernie said ‘the SatNav says we have to go a bit further yet’ so we drove straight past the entrance to the car park and Syri navigated us into a residential street! Ugh!

Angel of the North, Take II. There was a fence in the middle of the median strip for miles so it was ages before we could turn around and then there was no right turn from the other side of the carriage way into the car park. We had to drive all the way around the roundabout again and then, on the second pass, we managed to drive into the car park.

The Angel of the North was completed by Antony Gormley in 1998 as a millennium project commissioned by Gateshead Council. It is made of COR-TEN weathering steel which gives the sculpture its distinctive rusty, oxidized colour. It is 20 metres tall and has a wingspan of 54 metres which is larger than that of a Boeing 757! The artist states that ‘The Angel has three functions – firstly a historic one to remind us that below this site coal miners worked in the dark for 200 years, secondly to grasp hold of the future expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age and lastly to be the focus for our hopes and fears’.

From the angel we continued up the A1 to Alnwick (pronounced Annick) where we are staying at The Plough for three nights. We were shown to a teeny tiny room without a window. Definitely the smallest room we have stayed in all holiday. Fortunately, we chose this accommodation together so the finger cannot be pointed at either one of us for making a bad choice! We do have a very small skylight but it still feels a bit claustrophobic with no window to see out. I’m sure we’ll only be there to sleep so we’ll manage.

On the plus side we finally tracked down a roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner! Last Sunday we had hoped to have one in Cirencester but they do them for lunch down there and we were busy sightseeing at lunchtime! Tonight we walked into town to Adam and Eve where we enjoyed an excellent roast beef dinner with roast vegetables and a Yorkshire pudding. Yum.

We finished dinner early and decided that we would walk around to the castle to scout it out and then down to the Lion Bridge because Bernie has seen a really good image of the castle taken from the bridge. We found some ice-cream on our way so had our ice-cream for dessert today. Of course we should have taken our cameras with us for the photo op but Bernie can take RAW photos with his iPhone so … almost as good?



Steps: 8,266 (5.73 kms)

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