Bamburgh Castle

Bamburgh is a popular place to visit, bursting with history and has also featured in several film/TV productions. Bamburgh Castle is one of its main attractions. Perched on a massive, 180-foot (55 metres) high lump of basalt poking out into the North Sea, it is one of the dramatic icons of Northumberland’s coast. The beach is wonderful, too! There has been a fortress on that rocky crag since before the Anglo-Saxons invaded. The Anglian Kings of Northumbria made it their stronghold, the Normans built a new castle, and its bloody history continued. But the present building owes much to Victorian restoration and idealism. And thanks for that goes to wealthy arms manufacturer and dealer William Armstrong, whose family still live there. You can find out more about him at Cragside, the house he built near Rothbury. More recently, Bamburgh has caught public imagination through The Last Kingdom novels of Bernard Cornwell and the subsequent TV series.