Tag: Lindisfarne Castle

A Long Weekend 6: Lindisfarne Castle

Completing my account of the visit to Holy Island, part of a series of posts I am doing about my long weekend of 14-17 August.

Welcome to this latest post in my series about my long weekend doing family things. In the previous post I covered up to the entrance to Lindisfarne Castle. In this post I take the story up to our departure from Holy Island.

LINDISFARNE CASTLE

Somewhat surprisingly for a castle, even one completely redesigned in the early 20th century, the rooms are all quite small. There are a couple of decent videos along the way round, and the views from the upper gun battery are stunning.

THE REST OF HOLY ISLAND

Having finished at the castle we walked back by way of some of the older remains, including the foundations of the earliest religious building on the island (dates from the seventh century – St Aidan, who arrived in that part of the world in the year 635 is credited with bringing Christianity to what is now the northeast of England – nb ‘Englaland’, the predecessor term to England, was not used before the early tenth century). We stopped for refreshments at The Manor House hotel, which served some good local beers. The chips were better than they originally looked, and the whitebait were excellent. After leaving Holy Island we headed for Bamburgh, which forms the subject of the next post in this series.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are some pictures from the closing stages of our visit to Holy Island…

  • The lower gun battery by way of which one enters and leaves the castle.
  • The remains of the old Anglo-Saxon church
  • Detail about the old remains
  • A distant but direct view of Bamburgh Castle

A Long Weekend 4: Arriving On Lindisfarne

The first pf several posts about Lindisfarne.

Welcome to the next post in my series on my long weekend away (14-17 August). This post is the first of several I shall be putting up about Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island. This remarkable islands sits just of the coast of Northumberland – it is linked to the mainland by a causeway which is usable for some of each day.

GETTING THERE

Coming from our location getting on to the approach to the causeway required getting across the A1, and the junction in question has no traffic lights, which means that it takes a considerable time to get across. We then had a further substantial wait before being able to cross the causeway.

STARTING TO EXPLORE

We started with some general stuff about the island, its history and the wildlife to which it is home. We then headed in the direction of the castle, which in its current incarnation is modern, having been redesigned by Lutyens. There is also a walled garden which was designed and laid out by Gertrude Jekyll.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are some photographs from the early part of our explorations of this island:

  • A map of Holy Island
  • I don’t for second believe that this road was named in honour of former England batter Andrew Sandham, but an unintentional cricketing link here.
  • The lime kilns and the garden will feature in the next post in this series.