It's Grim Up North...Not!
Rothbury Northumberland is a small market town close to the Northumbria National Park. It is a favorite destination for hill walkers and people that just enjoy the beautiful outdoors.
The north of England is always portrayed in the media as grim as in the often used phrase.
"It's Grim Up North"
In reality it is stunningly beautiful and a wonderful place to live or visit.
Northumberland means the land north of the Humber river.
On our trip to the North of England we stayed at the Newcastle House Hotel in the centre of town. Chris the owner of the hotel is a keen drone flyer and he asked if I could get some shots of the hotel as you can see in the video.
I wasn't paid to make this video and it is not sponsered.
The hotel is in a great location for visiting the local attractions and has an interesting history of it's own and it's own Bangladeshi restaurant run by a Bangladeshi chef.
In the 16th century All Saints Church in Rothbury was the scene of a showdown between the theologian* Bernard Gilpin (1517 – 4 March 1583), and rival clans of reivers (gangs of villains) who had been fighting for control of resources in the borderlands for a couple of hundred years and had turned most of the region into a wasteland.
He was a magistrate amongst other things and he basically challenged them all to a duel. No one took the challenge.
"Fragments from an Anglo-Saxon cross, possibly dating from the 9th century, are the only surviving relics pre-dating the Norman conquest. They were discovered in 1849, when part of the church was demolished, and in 1856 the church was rebuilt. The [relics] are now in the town church and the University of Newcastle Museum."
Wikipedia
Interior staircase
Mobility bus for people with disabilities
Staff Cottage
Cragside House is currently in the care of the National Trust and was the home of William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong.
Cragside was the first house in the world to have hydro electric power generated from it's own lakes to provide electric light and power to the house.
Armstrong owned many engineering businesses one of which was the Armstrong Whitworth armaments firm. He also owned a shipyard that built warships.
He was a true industrial magnate with a keen interest in science and innovation.
He was the inventor of the hydraulic crane and the Armstrong gun which had a new breach loading mechanism and rifled barrel. He was well ahead of his contemporaries in many fields and he employed in excess of 20,000 people. He was a British Tesla.
There is a lot to see and do in this part of the country and as usual not enough time to do it all. I hope these images of Rothbury and surrounds encourage you to give it a visit.
Previous post in this series
@molometer/cragside-house-northumberland
Attributions
Bernard Gilpin Painting
By William Bell Scott - Art UK, Public Domain,
Lord & Lady Armstrong images
William & Daniel Downey, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Medieval gauntlets
creative commons licence
All Saints near Church Street, Rothbury, Morpeth, England, UK
theologian* A theologian is someone that studies the divine, religion and gods. Many become priests of one kind or another.
I have met a few in my life and the one thing that they had in common was that none of them believed in God.
