Day 9: Newcastle

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It started raining yesterday while we were on the train from Edinburgh to Newcastle, and it hasn’t stopped. Despite the rain, Liz and Eric, friends of my father, picked us up at the hostel this morning and we set out to see some castles. Bamburgh and Alnwick were on our schedule, but unfortunately the roads to Alnwick were closed and so we only managed to see Bamburgh today. The drive to the castle was beautiful, lots of green pastures with picturesque stone walls, it looked just like a postcard.

With origins in the 6th century, it began as a small settlement probably made mostly of wood, but soon after was expanded by the Normans, and began to resemble the castle that we see today. Upon the invention of the canon, it was increasingly harder to hold castles from invasion and it was abandoned. After the War of Roses (1483-1486) it was re-inhabited when it was gifted by Queen Elizabeth I to the Forster Family. At this point only the castle keep was serviceable, and it wasn’t until 1894 when Lord Armstrong purchased it, that was renovated and restored to its former glory. In between the Forsters and the Armstrongs, Bamburgh was owned by the Bishop of Durham, Lord Crewe, who used the castle to help support the poor in the area, and set up as school for girls within its walls. Due to the rain we were able to see the castle with few other visitors disrupting us. I’ve heard the view from the beach is incredible, but I’ll have to take their word for it, because the storm was bringing some dangerously large waves to that part of the beach.

After Bamburgh, we returned to Newcastle and went to the Sage, which is a music hall near the Millennium Bridge. We ate lunch there and tried to dry off a little bit, but we were still soggy by the time we left to go back to the hostel. Tomorrow we’re headed to York and hopefully the rain won’t follow us!

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