Warkworth Castle, Northumberland

So here we are back at Warkworth Castle in Northumberland, it’s a great place to visit but isn’t so accessible for disabled people like many of these places. It’s owned/run by English Heritage, it was owned by the Percy family in Tudor times. You can see my previous post here.

Warkworth Castle archways, English Heritage, Northumberland

Parts of it are covered but others are open to the elements. I must say that the stonework looks in really good shape.

Warkworth Castle Fireplace,Northumberland, English Heritage

Below is quite a grand staircase.

Warkworth Castle, Grand Staircase, English Heritage, Northumberlandir

But the stairs below aren’t for the faint hearted.

Warkworth Castle Stairs, Northumberland

Below is a really lovely part of the castle which is roofed, it’s a sort of ante room and I can imagine people millling about in it chatting, and sitting on the window seats.

Warkworth Castle windows, Northumberland, English Heritage

I really admire vaulted rooms although I’m always a wee bit nervous of them, I have to remind myself they’ve been good for centuries so are unlikely to fall on me!

Vaulted room ,Warkworth Castle, Northumberland

I spotted this teeny wee iron lion rampant badge from the bottom of a flight of stairs, it seems to have been set above what looks like a stone sink, but it might have been a cupboard. The lion rampant was the Percy family’s emblem/badge, but is of course better known as Scotland’s emblem.

lion rampant (Percy), Warksworth Castle, Northumberland

 

Warkworth Castle,wall,archway etc

Below is a view of Warkworth village taken from just outside the castle. It’s a lovely wee place with plenty of eateries, but we were on our way further south so didn’t have much time to spend exploring the place, we spent so much time in the castle.

Warkworth village, Northumberland

Blast from the Past – Beveridge Park Kirkcaldy Postcards –

Beveridge Park in Kirkcaldy is a lovely park which was designed and built in Victorian times. They usually involve a lot of land and land being so expensive nowadays they’re a thing of the past, but apparently if you live near one it makes your home much more desirable. We used to live a two minute walk from this one so whenever I came across old postcards of Beveridge Park I snapped them up for my album. This blogpost will probably only be of interest to Langtouners – natives of Kirkcaldy in Fife, or people who know and love the park.

Beveridge Park Gates, Kirkcaldy

The postcard below is of the long gone bandstand, it’s such a shame that most of these elegant bandstands were ripped down, mainly in the 1960s and 70s I think. Possibly some were demolished during the World War 2 scavenge for metal for the war effort.

Beveridge Park bandstand

The next postcard is of what we have always called the duck pond, but I see that it is described as ‘the lake’ on the postcard, it hasn’t changed much.

Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy

The following one shows the original layout of the formal part of the park.

Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy

This last postcard is the only one which has actually been postally used and it bears a postmark – May 12 08. So it’s 110 years old. The bottom part of the photo looks very different nowadays because there are enormous trees there now.

Beveridge Park in Kirkcaldy, Fife