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History

Built on a basalt outcrop, the castle was known to the native Britons as Din Guardi and had been the capital of the British Kingdom of Bryneich from the realm’s foundation in c.420 until 547, the year of the first written reference to the castle. In that year the citadel was captured by the Anglo-Saxon ruler Ida of Bernicia (Bryneich) and became Ida’s seat. It was briefly retaken by the Britons from his son Hussa during the war of 590 before being relieved later the same year.

His grandson Æðelfriþ passed it on to his wife Bebba, from whom the early name Bebanburgh was derived. The Vikings destroyed the original fortification in 993.

The Normans built a new castle on the site, which forms the core of the present one. William II unsuccessfully besieged it in 1095 during a revolt supported by its owner, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland. After Robert was captured, his wife continued the defence until coerced to surrender by the king’s threat to blind her husband.

Bamburgh then became the property of the reigning English monarch. Henry II probably built the keep. As an important English outpost, the castle was the target of occasional raids from Scotland. In 1464 during the Wars of the Roses, it became the first castle in England to be defeated by artillery, at the end of a nine-month siege by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick.

The Forster family of Northumberland provided the Crown with twelve successive governors of the castle for some 400 years until the Crown granted ownership to Sir John Forster. The family retained ownership until Sir William Forster (d. 1700) was posthumously declared bankrupt, and his estates, including the castle, were sold to Lord Crew, Bishop of Durham (husband of his sister Dorothy) under an Act of Parliament to settle the debts.

The castle deteriorated but was restored by various owners during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was finally bought by the Victorian industrialist William Armstrong, who completed the restoration.

Above information sourced from Wikipedia. Read the whole article for Bamburgh Castle

Go to The Bamburgh Castle official website

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HMS Trincomalee
HMS Trincomalee is a Royal Navy Leda-class sailing frigate built shortly following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. She was ordered on 30 October 1812 and was finally launched on 12 October 1817. After serving as a hulk, she was restored to her original appearance, and now serves as a museum ship.

The Trincomalee is one of two surviving frigates of this era (her sister HMS Unicorn is now a museum ship in Dundee). She was built in Bombay, India in 1817 by the Wadia’s in teak, due to oak shortages in Britain as a result of shipbuilding drives for the Napoleonic Wars. The ship was named Trincomalee after an action in 1782 between the Royal and French navies off the Ceylon (Sri Lanka) port of that name.

Trincomalee finished her Royal Navy service as a training ship, but was ‘reduced to reserve’ in 1895 and sold for scrap 2 years later. However she was then purchased by George Wheatley Cobb, restored, and renamed Foudroyant in honour of HMS Foudroyant, his earlier ship that had been wrecked in 1897. She was used in conjunction with HMS Implacable as an accommodation ship, a training ship, and a holiday ship based in Falmouth and remained in service until 1991 when she was again restored and renamed back to Trincomalee. Until his death in 1929, the Falmouth-based painter Henry Scott Tuke used the ship and its trainees as subject matter.
The Trincomalee holds the distinction of being the oldest British warship still afloat as HMS Victory, although 52 years her senior, is in dry dock.

Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Core Collection, following her recent restoration the Trincomalee has become the centrepiece of the historic dockyard museum in Hartlepool, United Kingdom, known as ‘Hartlepool’s Maritime Experience’, which also includes PS Wingfield Castle.

Read more: Hartlepool’s Maritime Experience, official website
Read more: HMS Trincomalee, official website
The above article is courtesy of Wikipedia: Read More

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