Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

Bamburgh

Bamburgh is a village on the coast in Northumberland, 5 miles from Belford.

Bamburgh Castle is a massive red sandstone edifice on the edge of a 150 foot precipice. It is most imposing when seen from along the coast. The castle was founded by King Ida in 547 and was the seat of the Kings of Bernicia, and later of Northumbria. It was rebuilt in the Norman period, and restored in the 18th and 19th centuries. Henry VI briefly ruled from here. Bamburgh Castle has been identified by some with Lancelot`s "Joyous Gard".

St. Aidan`s Church dates back to the 13th century, and has a vaulted crypt, which may have originally contained relics of Aidan, who died at Bamburgh in 651. At one time a church on this site was an Augustinian monastery.

There is a pleasant triangular Village Green.

The Grace Darling Museum tells the story of this extraordinary heroine, born here in 1815. She and her father, the lighthouse keeper, rowed out on a stormy night in 1838, to save five people who had been shipwrecked on the steamboat "Forfarshire". She died aged 27 and is buried in the churchyard.

The Worm of Bamburgh, also known as the Laidley Worm, is the subject of a Northumbrian folk tale about a King`s son who had been turned my magic into a fearsome dragon.