NORTHEAST ENGLAND – World Travel

Northumberland National Park

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

Welcome to the last great English wilderness: 398 sq miles of natural wonderland spread about the soft swells of the Cheviot Hills, the spiky moors of autumn-coloured heather and gorse, and the endless acres of forest guarding the deep, colossal Kielder Water. Even the negligible human influence – even today, there are only about 2000 inhabitants here – has been benevolent: the finest sections of Hadrian’s Wall run along the park’s southern edge and the landscape is dotted with prehistoric remains and fortified houses – the thick-walled peles were the only solid buildings built here until the mid-18th century.

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Alnwick

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

Northumberland’s historic ducal town, Alnwick (no tongue gymnastics: just say ‘annick’) is an elegant maze of narrow cobbled streets spread out beneath the watchful gaze of a colossal medieval castle. Not only will you find England’s most perfect bookshop, but also the most visited attraction in the northeast at Alnwick Garden.

The castle is on the northern side of town and overlooks the River Aln. The tourist office (510665; www.alnwick.gov.uk; 2 The Shambles; 9am-5pm Mon-Sat, 10am-4pm Sun) is by the marketplace, in a handsome building that was once a butcher’sshop.

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Bamburgh

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

Bamburgh is all about the castle, a massive, imposing structure high up on a basalt crag and visible for miles around. The village itself – a tidy fist of houses around a pleasant green – isn’t half bad, but it’s really just about the castle, a solid contender for England’s best.

Bamburgh Castle (214515; www.bamburghcastle.com; adult/child £6/2.50; 11am-5pm mid-Mar–Oct) is built around a powerful Norman keep and played a key role in the border wars. It was restored in the 19th century by the great industrialist Lord Armstrong, who also turned his passion to Cragside and was the owner of Jesmond Dene House in Newcastle. The great halls within are still home to the Armstrong family. It’s just inland from long open stretches of empty white-sand beach, ideal for blustery walks.

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Berwick Upon Tweed

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

This salt-crusted fortress town is England’s northernmost city and the holder of two unique honours: it is the most fought-over settlement in European history (between 1174 and 1482 it changed hands 14 times between the Scots and the English) and its football team, Berwick Rangers, are the only English team to play in the Scottish League – albeit at the low-level 3rd division in 2006–7.

Although it has been firmly English since the 15th century, it retains its own peculiar identity, as though the vagaries of its seesaw history have forced it to look inwards and not trust anyone but its own – you need only walk its massive ramparts, built during Elizabethan times and still virtually complete, to understand the town’s insularity.

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Corbridge

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

The mellow commuter town of Corbridge is a handsome spot above a green-banked curve in the Tyne, its shady, cobbled streets lined with old-fashioned shops. Folks have lived here since Saxon times when there was a substantial monastery, while many of the buildings feature stones nicked from nearby Corstopitum.

The tourist office (632815; www.thisiscorbridge.co.uk; Hill St; 10am-6pm Mon-Sat & 1-5pm Sun mid-May–Sep, 10am-5pm Mon-Sat Easter–mid-May & Oct) is part of the library.

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County Durham

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

Picturesque, peaceful villages and unspoilt market towns dot the lonely, rabbit-inhabited North Pennine and the gentle ochre hills of Teesdale. At the heart of it all is County Durham’s simply exquisite capital, one of England’s most visited towns and an absolute must on your northern itinerary.

Ironically, this pastoral image, so resonant of its rich medieval history, has only come back to life in recent years; for most of the last three centuries the county was given over almost entirely to the mining of coal, and the countryside is punctuated with the relics of that once all-important industry, now slowly being reclaimed by nature. A brutal and dangerous business, coal mining was the lifeblood of entire communities and its sudden end in 1984 by the stroke of a Conservative pen has left some purposeless towns and an evocatively scarred landscape.

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Durham

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

The best way to arrive in Durham is by early-morning train on a clear day. As you emerge from the train station, look across the River Wear to the hilltop peninsula, and you’ll see the main reason for coming in all its resplendent glory. England’s most beautiful Romanesque cathedral, a masterpiece of Norman architecture, rates pretty high on our brilliant Britain list. Consider the setting: a huge castle, the aforementioned cathedral and, surrounding them both, a cobweb of cobbled streets usually full of upper-crust students attending Durham’s other big pull, the university. It’s all so…English.

OK, so the university may not have the hallowed prestige of Oxbridge – it was only founded in 1832 – but its terrific academic reputation and competitive rowing team make the disappointment of not getting into Oxford or Cambridge that bit easier to bear.

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Farne Islands

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

One of England’s most incredible sea-bird conventions is to be found on a rocky archipelago of islands about three miles offshore from the undistinguished fishing village of Seahouses. There’s a tourist office (01655-720884; Seafield Rd; 10am-5pm Apr-Oct) near the harbour in Seahouses and a National Trust Shop (01665-721099; 16 Main St; 10am-5pm Apr-Oct) for all island-specific information.

The best time to visit the Farne Islands (NT; 01665-720651; admission £5.20, £4.20 Apr & Aug-Sep; 10.30am-6pm Apr & Aug-Sep, Inner Farne also 1.30-5pm May-Jul, Staple also 10.30am-1.30pm May-Jul) is during breeding season (roughly May to July), when you can see feeding chicks of 20 species of sea bird, including puffin, kittiwake, Arctic tern, eider duck, cormorant and gull. This is a quite extraordinary experience, for there are few places in the world where you can get so close to nesting sea birds. The islands are also home to England’s only colony of grey seals.

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Hadrians Wall

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

What exactly have the Romans ever done for us? The aqueducts. Law and order. And this enormous wall, built between AD 122 and 128 to keep ‘us’ (Romans, subdued Anglo-Saxons) in and ‘them’ (hairy barbarians from Scotland) out. Or so the story goes. Hadrian’s Wall, named in honour of the emperor that ordered it built, was Rome’s single greatest engineering project, a spectacular 73-mile testament to ambition and the practical Roman mind. Even today, almost 2000 years after the first stone was laid, the sections that are still standing remain an awe-inspiring sight, proof that when the Romans wanted something done, they just knuckled down and did it.

It wasn’t easy. When completed, the mammoth structure ran across the narrow neck of the island, from Solway Firth in the west almost to the mouth of the Tyne in the east. The section from Newcastle to the River Irthing was built of stone, and turf blocks were used on the section to Solway – roughly 3m thick and 4.5m high. A 3m-deep, 9m-wide ditch and mound were excavated immediately in front (except where there were natural defences). Every Roman mile (1.62 miles; even in measurement the Romans outdid us) there was a gateway guarded by a small fort (milecastle) and between each milecastle were two observation turrets. Milecastles are numbered right across the country, starting with Milecastle 0 at Wallsend and ending with Milecastle 80 at Bowness-on-Solway. Between each was a series of turrets, tagged alphabetically, so Milecastle 39 (a good one) was followed by Turret 39B, Turret 37B and then Milecastle 40.

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Hexham

WorldTravelDB.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:59:57 +0000

Long famed for its fine Augustinian abbey, handsome Hexham was awarded Country Life’s Best Market Town award for 2005, a fitting tribute to this bustling town interlinked with cobbled alleyways. It is the most substantial of the wall towns, with more restaurants, hotels and high-street shops than anywhere between Newcastle and Carlisle. The tourist office (652220; www.hadrianswallcountry.org; Wentworth Car Park; 9am-6pm Mon-Sat, 10am-5pm Sun mid-May–Oct, 10am-5pm Mon-Sat Oct–mid-May) is northeast of the town centre.

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