A couple of weeks ago we were away in the north-east of England, just for a few days, seeing places we hadn’t visited before and catching up with old friends who live there. We had a great time, and the weather behaved itself beautifully, apart from heavy rain for about 15 minutes as we got to Seaton Delaval, an English National Trust property near Whitley Bay.

But it was Warkworth Castle that we visited first as we stopped off on our way down south. It’s a ruin, but a very impressive one. It was the home of the Percy family, I must admit that I didn’t realise that the Percys originated from Scotland with the first Earl being a son of King David of Scotland who gave it to his youngest son. That solves the mystery of why they have the Scottish symbol of the lion rampant everywhere. In fact when we were in a Carlisle bookshop I overheard two men talking about a local historian who believed that Scotland went all the way to the Lake District, and they agreed. One shopkeeper who enjoys holidays in Scotland told me that she thought that Scotland was like the Lake District – on steroids!

The setting of the castle couldn’t be better to my mind anyway, as you can see from the view below, through the remains of a large window.

There’s also a great view of the River Coquet from the other side of the castle.

There are really two separate ruins, with the one above being in much better condition than the one below as you can see.

I took quite a lot of photos, but I’ll leave it at that for the moment. If you ever find yourself in Northumberland and you enjoy a good castle/ruin you should definitely visit Warkworth, the village at the foot of the castle is very quaint, obviously a destination as it has lots of eateries.