Saturday Snapshot: Bamburgh Castle

Published on by Margaret

Last Monday we visited Bamburgh Castle on the coast in Northumberland overlooking the North Sea. It’s a dramatic sight, a huge castle extending over ¼ of a mile, built on a volcanic outcrop, 45 metres above sea level. (Click on the photos to enlarge.)

Bamburgh Castle from the carpark

Bamburgh Castle was bought by Lord Armstrong (who built Cragside) and renovated by him at the end of the 19th century. The castle still belongs to the Armstrong family, and is open to the public. It also hosts weddings and corporate events and has been used as a film location since the 1920s, featuring in films such as Ivanhoe (1952), El Cid (1961), Mary, Queen of Scots (1972), and Elizabeth (1998).

The entrance is through two gatehouse towers, which still have some of the original stonework. They were altered and added to in the 19th century.

Gatehouse Towers

From there you walk along the Battery Terrace, with its cannons facing the sea, placed there ready to defend the castle when Napoleon threatened to invade Britain.

Battery Terrace

From the Battery Terrace you can see Lindisfarne to the north and the Farne Islands to the south. Lindisfarne is just a dot on the horizon above the first cannon in the photo.

Inner Farne on the horizon

The photo below is of the Keep, which was originally built in the 12th century. It sits on a massive plinth to prevent attackers digging beneath it and setting fires to collapse it.

The Keep

And finally a view of Bamburgh Castle taken from the road from Seahouses to Bamburgh:

Bamburgh Castle taken from Seahouses

See Alyce’s blog At Home With Books for more Saturday Snapshots.

21 thoughts on “Saturday Snapshot: Bamburgh Castle”

  1. Wonderful location, great photos. That beach is trememdous. When I next go back that way, it’d be great to walk to Bamburgh from Seahouses along the beach.

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  2. Thank you for that wonderful tour! I love that arched entranceway – I can just hear the horses clip-clopping through there 😉

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  3. I have always wanted to visit a castle. It hasn’t happened yet, but I know it will sometime in the future. Imagine all the history, both small and large, that happened in all those places!

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  11. That would be so much fun to visit! I never get tired of looking at castles (probably has something to do with living in the US).

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  12. When I was younger and went to Scotland with my family, I was obsessed with castles – couldn’t get enough of them! I love that there are so many of them throughout the UK – you are lucky to be able to visit them!

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  13. I’ve been to LIndisfarne, but not Bamburgh, Perhaps if Denis and I get to come to the UK next year, we’ll be able to go there. In the mean time, thank you so much for the tour!

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