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Bamburgh Castle - Bamburgh, Northumberland (Pvt)

The basalt crag where Bamburgh Castle now stands has been used over and over again as a base of occupation as is proved by archaeological finds from the site. Before the Romans the local Votadini Celtic tribe may have used it and during Roman times it was used as part of the beacon system along the coast, like Scarborough Castle's site in Yorkshire. In 547 AD, the Anglo-Saxon king Ida was using it as his power base and by the seventh century, the Christian King Oswald endowed a monastery on nearby Holy Island (Lindisfarne) and brought a new centre of religion and learning to Northumberland. The Norman Keep at Bamburgh succeeded the Anglo-Saxon period and remains today a visible sign of power, high above the golden beach.

When the great Viking raiding armies came and conquered the North in the ninth century, Bamburgh was the last resort of the English, who had no other king left save Alfred the Great in the far south.

The first Norman castle on the site became the centre of a revolt against William II in 1095, with the Earl of Northumberland, Robert de Mowbray successfully withstanding attack. When he was captured, his wife continued the defense until she was blackmailed into submission by the King's threats to blind her husband. Once in royal hands, the castle was strengthened by Henry II in the twelfth century and only succumbed to attack by artillery three centuries later.   

Through the centuries, Bamburgh has expanded and been modified to suit the requirements of the owners, and it has been visited by kings (Edward I, II and III, John and Henry III) and imprisoned the once powerful (Piers de Gaveston and Robert the Bruce among them). Henry VI made it his capital during his unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne and in 1464, it gained the dubious distinction of becoming the first castle in England successfully besieged by artillery, though having withstood for a siege of nine months duration.

By the seventeenth century, the castle had been in Crown hands and deteriorating for long enough. It was sold to Claudius Forster, whose descendants unfortunately neglected it further until it passed into the hands of Lord Crewe who left it to trustees of a charity. Repairs were carried out which did little for the architecture, but at least it was being usefully used by the middle of the eighteenth century.   

The castle was really saved by the Victorian engineer 1st Lord Armstrong, also the builder of Cragside in Northumberland and there is a display at Bamburgh of the military innovations from his designs and factories. Bamburgh's most enduring history has always been in defence and so it is fitting that the castle we see today covers the last thousand years of military might in the North of England.

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