Visiting Northumberland, An Underrated County Of Castles

With Northumberland only being a couple of hours from our door, right over the border in England, it’s amazing that it took so long for us to finally check it out. But then isn’t that always the way?

If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that some of the most surprising treasures are often not that far away from us. Northumberland has actually been on my list for a while, as there are a few places I’ve been keen to visit – but invariably we just kept not quite getting round to it when there are so many adventures to be had this side of the border.

Northumberland truly has a hell of a lot to offer though – there are lots of fantastic castles (and that’s coming from a Scot!), as well as an island you can drive out to at certain times of the day, one of the best book shops in the entire country, a garden full of illegal plants, prime puffin-spotting excursions, and beautiful seaside towns waiting to be explored. Safe to say there is a lot to do in Northumberland!

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Finally, a few weeks ago, we were off to Sheffield to see some pals for a weekend. Sheffield is a surprisingly long drive from Edinburgh (over five hours!) and so we decided to break up the journey with a stop in Northumberland both ways.

Leaving on the Friday night after work, we had decided to stop overnight in Alnwick, not far over the border. Alnwick pretty much deserves a post on its own, which I will get around to doing at some point, so for now it can settle for the top spot on a post about Northumberland as a whole.

Here’s what we got up to in Northumberland, including some of the best highlights of this much overlooked county.

Alnwick Castle

My personal top thing to do in Northumberland is to stop in the lovely town of Alnwick and check out the castle.

This is, honestly, one of the best castles I have ever been to.

And that has nothing to do with the fact you can have broomstick lessons while you’re there!

That’s right, not only is Alnwick Castle one of the top attractions of Northumberland, but it was also used for some outdoor scenes in Harry Potter, filling in for the position of Hogwarts Castle itself.

Whether you’re a Potterhead or not, it’s an impressive castle from the moment you arrive, but what I really liked was just how much there was to do there. We only had a couple of hours to explore, and we managed to see all the spectacular state rooms, read up on the history of the castle, check out some of the extra exhibits, find a dragon, and of course, watch a broomstick lesson.

We also just missed a falconry show, and didn’t get to join any of the guided tours that take place throughout the day. Suffice to say – there’s a lot to see and do just at this one attraction!

Tickets last for a year, so we’re already planning to go back!

(Obviously I wanted to take part in the broomstick lesson – but it was actually a bank holiday weekend and there were lots of kids around, so I didn’t want to take a place away from a child! As it turned out, there was plenty of space on the first lesson of the day, but it was fun enough watching how ridiculous it all was! It’s hilarious and so much fun. I’m definitely going to take part next time, make no mistake.)

Alnwick Gardens

We didn’t make it to Alnwick Gardens on this visit as we just didn’t have time, but we have visited since and they’re fantastic. I actually thought they were part of the castle, but although the castle is set in the same park, the actual gardens are a separate attraction and something that requires even more time than the castle.

The best part of the gardens is the Poison Garden. Full of poisonous and illegal plants, including the newly added “most dangerous plant in the world”, this garden looks fascinating and is truly unique as you’ll find things here that you would never usually see, even in a museum. So cool!

(The new plant is the “gympie-gympie”, a plant with such potent powers that apparently if you touch it for even a second, you’ll feel like you’re “being electrocuted and on fire” for several weeks. Eesh! Needless to say, it’s locked away far from prying fingers.)

As well as dangerous plants, there’s also tons for kids to do, including a fairytale woodland village Lilidorei, mini golf in a magical forest, and even fantastical tree houses.

Money-saving tip: you can get 2 for 1 entry with a card available with the May issue of Gardener’s World, which you can order here! If you register with MagsDirect, you’ll also get 20% off your order, and the card includes hundreds of gardens all over the UK, including some of Scotland’s best ones like Drummond gardens in Perthshire, Ballindalloch Castle in Speyside, and the Japanese gardens near Dollar.

Barter Books

Before heading out of Alnwick, I had to pop into Barter Books for a visit.

Barter Books is, hands down, one of the best second-hand book shops in the UK! Set inside an old Victorian train station, it’s absolutely stuffed full of collectible editions and a wee train even runs along above the bookshelves!

Not only is it a great shop in a fantastic setting, they are also actually responsible for a very famous British slogan.

Back in the ’90s, the owners were unboxing some books when they found a curious poster bearing the words “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON”; something which at that point, believe it or not, had never been seen. The posters had been created just in case of a crisis (e.g. if Britain was ever invaded), and a campaign would be needed to boost morale in the country – but they were never actually used! Nevertheless, the bookshop owners displayed the poster in the shop, which garnered so much interest and attention that they started making merchandise. It’s incredible to think that this is now synonymous with British culture and ideals – and it all started in this little shop.

Naturally, we had to buy a couple of books while we were there, and there was always a queue of people which is nice to see in an independent bookshop! You even get a free bookmark with each purchase.

Other things to check out in Alnwick

• I forgot to take a photo, but I did find a weird road name. Just outside Barter Books, the road opposite is called “Bondgate Without”. What does that even mean?! What is a “without”? What is the road without?

• Turnbulls Northumbrian Food Hall. This was just over the road from where we were staying, and an old work friend happened to recommend it to me. It’s basically a local supermarket with lots of goodies, including sausage rolls and scotch eggs that we picked up for lunch on-the-go. They also had really delicious looking family pies and other meals all made from locally sourced ingredients! This has become a go-to stop whenever we are passing this way.

• Stay at: Hog’s Head Inn. We had a brilliant stay here, and it was perfectly positioned on the edge of Alnwick, right off the A1, so it’s a great base for exploring the rest of Northumberland too. We also ended up having dinner here and it was excellent. The sauce in my dish had mead in it, and oh my God it was soooo good! We’d stay here, and eat here, again. (Breakfast also brilliant, a comprehensive buffet.)

• The Dirty Bottles pub. We didn’t actually end up going here as we expected everywhere to be really busy on a bank holiday weekend, but it was on my list. The pub, originally Ye Olde Cross Inn, is named after the legend of a previous owner cleaning the bottles in the window when he suddenly dropped dead. His widow believed anyone who tried to clean them would suffer the same fate, and the bottles have sat untouched in the window of the pub ever since (for two centuries, apparently!).

Bamburgh Castle

On our way back up, I knew we needed to check out some more Northumberland castles. After all, there are so many brilliant ones in this area; proportionally possibly one of the richest areas in England for castles.

If you have time for a second castle, I definitely recommend checking out Bamburgh. We haven’t gone inside yet, but even from the outside it’s one of the most impressive I’ve seen! I live in Scotland for goodness sake and here just over the border are two castles that have blown my little mind.

Bamburgh Castle is REALLY cool, and one of the best to photograph too.

I stupidly didn’t end up going to the photo spot that everyone goes to, instead deciding to walk around it to the beach and getting lost in the maze of bushes. It was fine, I got to the beach eventually, but getting back through a shortcut to the village was so overgrown that I had to turn back and start again. Whoops!

Anyway, the beach is amazing too, and well worth a visit. The perfect place to bring a dog and a picnic on a nice day, and with the backdrop of a huge castle, it couldn’t be more perfect really.

This is definitely one of the best things to do in Northumberland.

(Photo above taken seconds before a man walked straight into frame and took a wee next to that grass. Right where I was very obviously pointing the camera. No, the camera isn’t zoomed in, I was standing that close. Why are men?!)

Holy Island & Lindisfarne Castle

We also had time, believe it or not, for ANOTHER castle in Northumberland.

This can be a little trickier to get to, because it’s on an island and there’s no ferry.

How on earth do you get there then, I hear you ask?

You drive! You just have to be very, very careful with the tide times. Thankfully, the tide times coincided exactly with when we would be driving past to get home, so it seemed like the perfect excuse to stop by. By which I mean, drive across an expansive beach to get to an island with a castle and ruined abbey on it. How cool is that?!

Unlike a few other tidal islands (like the Brough Of Birsay in Orkney or Cramond Island in Edinburgh), Holy Island is accessible for much longer, around six or seven hours at a time. This gives you plenty of time and also lee-way if your journey doesn’t quite match up with the optimal times. Always check the up-to-date tide times here!

It’s a really awesome drive across the beach (on a road, I hasten to add) all the way out to the island.

Lindisfarne Castle isn’t the only attraction on the island, but it’s the one we were focusing on seeing. It’s not actually a castle in the traditional sense – it’s been renovated into a holiday home but it’s managed by National Trust. The tagline is “a castle (that’s not a castle) on an island (that’s not an island)” which made me laugh.

We didn’t pay to go in, although you do have to pay for parking on the island, unless you’re staying in a hotel or guesthouse overnight. Driving in the village is restricted, so parking in the main car park is the only real option. It was around £5 to park for the least amount of time.

The priory wasn’t open when we were there, which Ash was a little disappointed about, but to be fair we were there according to the tide times, and we wouldn’t have got there during opening hours anyway (which begs the question, surely the opening times should vary according to the times it’s possible for people to visit?).

Anyway, we did get to see it through the gate, and we looked up the history separately.

The history of Lindisfarne Priory actually begins on Iona, which we visited on a fantastic trip to the Isle Of Mull, when a monk from Iona Abbey was summoned to open a monastery in what back then was Northumbria. The Priory was abandoned in the 8th century following a raid by Vikings, and while there have been iterations of it in the centuries that followed, eventually it closed altogether and is now preserved in ruin.

Lindisfarne is also famous for mead, originally made by the monks in the priory. Again, I would definitely have gone in to buy some, but unfortunately the shop was also shut! You can buy their mead all over the UK, but still, it would have been cool to buy it from the source.

However even with the closures, the island was well worth a visit, even just for a couple of hours.

The Olde Ship Inn, Seahouses

There was one more stop I wanted to make on the Northumberland coast before we headed home – a pub!

This isn’t any old pub; it’s one of those ones full of character and nautical bits and pieces hanging from every spare inch of space on the walls and ceilings! It’s excellent.

…unfortunately, we had booked a table and were seated in the nice but not-quite-as-cool restaurant. Being completely honest, the food wasn’t amazing and the service was a bit hit and miss. It was great to start with but then it took forever to be able to pay. Which is a shame because I’d definitely recommend coming here for drinks!

Also, the pub itself was really busy, so I didn’t really get any photos as it was one of those awkward “several people staring right at you as you try to take a photo” kind of situations. We’ll pop in for a drink next time and I’ll actually get some proper photos! In the meantime, check out their website.

The Farne Islands

Seahouses is a lovely little town, but one of the main attractions is getting a boat out to the nearby Farne Islands to see the puffins and lots of other seabirds.

It’s probably obvious but we did not have time to do this on our trip! This is definitely something I’d like to do though, and Ash’s dad has done the trip and loved it. (He also started telling me about this brilliant pub he went to, and I went “oh, was it the Olde Ship Inn?” and he went “how did you know?!”)

And everything else in Northumberland, too

That’s all we had time for on our trip, but the fun doesn’t stop there.

Believe it or not, there are plenty more castles! Warkworth and Chillingham are particularly notable, and Dunstanburgh Castle is a ruined castle on the coast which provides a lovely walk. A fun fact about Chillingham is the grounds are home to the only wild cattle in the UK. I scoffed at this, because my old neighbours in Orkney own an island with wild cows on it! However, the island of Swona was abandoned and the cattle now live feral, but apparently the cattle at Chillingham were always wild.

It’s not just the coast that has everything to offer, either. In the south of the county, you hit Hadrian’s Wall, where sadly the famous Sycamore Gap view is no more. The village next to where Sycamore Gap was is called Once Brewed, but apparently if you drive from the west, it’s called Twice Brewed! There’s another silly fun fact for you.

We’ve driven through charming Corbridge before too, and made a mental note to stop there next time. We’ve been told on good authority that Hexham is lovely too.

My plan for visiting Northumberland was to fit the theme of the county entirely, and stay in a castle! I’ve got my eye on Otterburn Castle, although it was booked up when we visited. There’s also Langley Castle near Hadrian’s Wall.

As you can see, Northumberland is way more than just a weekend destination. And for that reason, we will definitely, definitely be back!

Northumberland is as north as you can get in England, but there are plenty more places to check out south of our border! Read more about northern England here:
⭐ Meres, Tarns & Waters: A Short Stint In The Lake District
⭐ A Day Driving Through The Yorkshire Dales: Highlights Of A One Day Road Trip
⭐ A Festive Weekend In York
⭐ What To Do In Liverpool On A Monday