Last Updated on 10th August 2019To visit Lindisfarne, a tidal island at the tip of north-east England, is to enter a different world. It is a world of saltwater, seabirds and saints, a world of mudflats, mead and mystery that…
The Grace Darling legend
Last Updated on 25th June 2019A neighbour was taking a short break in Northumberland, and told me that one of the reasons she was excited about it was because, growing up, she had a picture of Grace Darling on her…
Warkworth
North East England does many things rather well, and one of them is castles. There are dramatic coastal castles, like Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh, grand castles like Alnwick, frontier castles, like Norham, and castles you can stay in, like Langley Castle.…
Craster to Dunstanburgh
Last Updated on 9th July 2018There are several reasons to go to the little Northumbrian coastal village of Craster. It is famous for its kippers, offers several pleasant eating options, an art gallery and is a popular base for bird…
Arbeia upon Tyne
Last Updated on 16th May 2018I’m driving through the terraced urban landscape of South Shields, in search of a Roman fort. It is called Arbeia, a name believed to be a Latinised form of the Aramaic for ‘the place of…
Marsden Bay isn’t quite the Algarve
The wind whips words away, yet the incessant piercing cries of thousands of seabirds all around Marsden Bay cut through every sound. To the best of my knowledge, England’s north east coast between South Shields and Sunderland features in few…
Angel of the North, steel statue and daffodil
So there you are, trundling down (or up) the A1 by Newcastle/Gateshead and this gigantic, rust-coloured, figure flashes past your peripheral vision. “Oh”, you think to yourself, in a wondering kind of way, “That can’t possibly be a very old…
Washington’s medieval DNA
Last Updated on 6th December 2016Here is Washington Old Hall – a pleasant, but fairly unremarkable looking, old manor house in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear (say ‘Wee-ah’). Predominantly 17th century, it has pretty Jacobean-style formal gardens, an…
Eleven O One
Last Updated on 6th December 2016In 1918, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. For the first time in more than four years, in this part of…
Durham Cathedral
Last Updated on 21st June 2019Durham’s story is a fascinating piece of the story of England. It is partly a tale of saints and kings and moving bones, and it begins back in the 7th century. The founding of Durham…
Cragside
Last Updated on 29th August 2019Cragside was the home of William George Armstrong; and William George Armstrong was probably a genius. Born in 1810 in Newcastle upon Tyne, he was one of those irritating people who seems to have been…
Souter lighthouse
Last Updated on 6th December 2016I journeyed to Souter from Gateshead through seemingly endless housing estates. The drive seemed curiously out of time, as though my car was in a bubble of the past, a mood somehow pricked at the…