I’ve been wandering around not quite killing time but without any grand plan other than going to Bellingham on Friday. On top of that I’m finding difficulty in getting into caravan site – they are either full or they have been converted to “fixed van” parks without either the local signposting or the printed matter being updated. The result on Monday night was I spent the night in a lay by on the A1 on the border and slept surprisingly well. Before that I drifted around north of Berwick intending to stay there and do the coastal walk but failure to find anywhere to stay meant that didn’t happen.
Before that, as I was driving through Kelso I decided to visit Floors Castle
The “rear”
The front
The view from the front
The building on the right is Kelso Abbey. The abbey lands were given to the 1st Duke of Roxburgh by James VI/I because of the support given in enabling him to become James I. And the Roxburgh’s are still there due to a judicious marriage to an American heiress in the 1930’s.
There was a Roxburgh castle and this is the remain thereof. James II was killed here when one of his guns misfired.
Sorry this is blurred – but if you are going to drive a four-in-hand when you grow up, this is what you play with when a small child.
Floors castle in icing sugar or matchsticks or something equally silly
The Order of the Thistle
A stuffed Great Bustard and
a stuffed Great Northern (?) diver.
I wanted to go to Manderston House, where the Channel 4 upstairs/downstairs programme was made – but it was closed.
However I did visited Jim Clark Room, in Duns and his grave in Chirnside. I was in France having my first fondue ever when I heard of his death which I thought was on my birthday but it transpires I was out by 1 day.
and so to the coast:
a calm North Sea at Eyemouth
a rather good use of an open fish market
The local bigwig, John Nisbet got John Adam to build him this elegant house away from the town. The recent refurbishment uncovered all the special hidden cellars, tunnels etc for Nisbet’s smuggling.
The Border layby on the A1
On Tuesday morning I fought my way past the traffic jams for folk queuing to get into Alnwick Castle Gardens and found somewhere quiet to park in Alnwick.
When we lived in Ponteland we went to Beadnell and Warkworth often in the summers. The A1 in those days went through the middle of the town and there were always traffic jams, mostly because of this:
Bondgate, Alnwick
The road went right past the entrance to the castle
Alnwick Castle
In those days, if you went into the castle, you went through these gates. Also in those days parts of the castle were used as a Teachers’ Training College – a case of life preceding art given the use of Alnwick Castle as a film location for Hogwarts. The road then went down the hill and over the bridge over the Coquet. The bridge was designed to have a lion on each parapet but from week to week one would observe which lion, if any, was on its parapert or if it was in the river. I don’t know if this sport (or was it just bad driving?) still continues but there was only one lion…..
Only one lion
Ye Olde Cross
I was reassured that the bottles in the window of Ye Olde Cross had not been moved – the last person who moved them over 200 years ago dropped dead and they haven’t been touched since.
And then I spent a happy few hours in Barter Books, a second hand book shop in the old Alnwick station
I found a book on Ponteland with a photo of kids coming out of the village school (demolished and made into a “village green”) where I went to school and this is about my era and they all look happy because they are leaving the school for the day.
I did manage not to buy anything – good given I now have many more books than I set off with.
An unexpected roof adornment – a challenge to the shark on the roof in Oxford?
I am now in a campsite in Wooler and while it has not been raining all day it has been on and off and been windy. The only photo I have taken is:
and as I have spent most of the day curled up with a book, this seems to sum it up.
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