Northumberland Coast |
The Northumberland Coast is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) covering 39 miles of coastline from Berwick-Upon-Tweed to the River Coquet estuary in the north-east of England. Features include: Alnmouth, Bamburgh, Beadnell, Budle Bay, Cocklawburn Beach, Craster, Dunstanburgh Castle, the Farne Islands, Lindisfarne, Seahouses and Amble.
The coastal area is situated to the east of the A1 road. It is sparsely populated and includes sandy beaches, sand dunes, rugged cliffs and isolated islands. It includes two National Nature Reserves. Fortresses and peel towers along the coast are evidence of past conflicts between the English and Scots in this border area. Coal fields are nearby and ’sea coal’ is washed up on the beaches.
The stretch around Bamburgh is notable for two reasons: the imposing Bamburgh Castle, overlooking the beach, seat of the former Kings of Northumbria, and at present owned by the Armstrong family and its association with the Victorian heroine, Grace Darling.
The extensive sandy beach to the east of Bamburgh was awarded the Blue Flag rural beach award in 2005. The Bamburgh Dunes, an area of sand dunes which are a Site of Special Scientific Interest, stand behind the award winning beach. Bamburgh is popular with holidaymakers and is within the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Bamburgh Castle, then called Din Guardi, may have been the capital of the Brythonic kingdom of Bryneich between about AD 420 and 547. In 547 the castle was taken by the invading Angles led by Ida son of Eoppa and was renamed Bebbanburgh by one of his successors, Æthelfrith, after Æthelfrith’s wife Bebba, according to the Historia Brittonum. From then onwards the castle became the capital of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia until it merged with its southern neighbour, Deira, in 634. After the two realms united as Northumbria the capital was moved to York.
Henry VI ruled all England (in name) from Bamburgh in 1464, during the Wars of the Roses. The castle was eventually reduced by artillery.
Thomas Malory considered Bamburgh to be Lancelot’s castle Joyous Gard. The Victorian poet Algernon Swinburne agreed and called it “The noblest hold in all the North.”
“They saw the help and strength of Joyous Gard,
The full deep glorious tower that stands over
Between the wild sea and the broad wild lands…”
Swinburne swam here, as did the novelist E. M. Forster who adopted the Forsters of Bamburgh as his ancestors.
The Geography
The most notable features of the region include The Whin Sill which is a tabular layer of igneous rock, or sill, in County Durham and Northumberland, in the northeast of England. It lies partly in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and partly in Northumberland National Park.
Formed of dolerite (a basaltic rock) 295 million years ago, the Whin Sill is part of a sheet of rock stretching from Teesdale, home of various waterfalls, along a northerly line to Berwick, home of the Farne Islands. Bamburgh Castle, Dunstanburgh Castle, Lindisfarne Castle and stretches of Hadrian’s Wall all strategically take advantage of high, rocky cliff lines formed by the sill.
The above article is courtesy of Wikipedia: Read More
