Our next two stops were the village of Bamburgh, with its 11th century castle, and then on to Alnwick (which has a weird pronunciation – the “l” and “w” are silent so it’s pronounced “Anick”).
The castle at Bamburgh sits on a high point overlooking both the North Sea and the town of Bamburgh. It was purchased by William Armstrong in 1894 and still remains in their family today. It is one of the largest fully intact castles we’ve seen in the UK.
Deb, Clare, and Pete are dwarfed by the sheer wall!
The castle overlooks the Farne Islands in the North Sea. Off in the distance you can see St. Cuthbert’s Chapel and the Inner Farne Lighthouse.
Alnwick is a pretty little market town with yet another castle, which we didn’t go to, and an attached gardens, which we did. First we went to this very quirky used book store, where you can “barter” for your books by bringing your own used books for trade. Aptly named “Barter Books”, it is located in an old railway station.
They really don’t want you to steal the cups at the public water fountain!
Then it was on to the Alnwick Gardens, including, the famous Poison Garden!
The fountains:
The ornamental gardens:
The bamboo maze:
The hedge maze:
The gardens are beautiful, but the Poison Garden can kill you! Tours of the Poison Garden are limited to 20 people, take about half an hour, and have very simple rules: don’t touch it, don’t taste it, and don’t smell it.
Our tour guide was very happy to tell us all the various ways in which these plants can kill humans, and in great detail, including this beautiful laburnum tree shown below. It’s ok to touch it (a little), but the berries are very poisonous and you cannot ingest it. But if you have one in your yard, like our neighbors do, you can’t cut it down. If you try to recycle it, it will poison the water system. If you try to burn it, you release toxic, poisonous smoke. Other than that, it’s a lovely tree!
The whole garden is full of poisonous plants.
And do NOT think of straying far from the tour!
I like the wall signs…
The wall signs were great!
Don’t tell the KGB about this place!
It was really something! Did you know that both rhubarb and rosemary are poisonous? Of course you have to eat a crazy amount! They also had marijuana with a sign, “keep off the grass!”
I hadn’t seen this blog post when I commented on the Durham University Botanic Gardens! You did go to the Alnwick Garden! I can’t wait to talk to you about it when you are back on campus!! Visiting this garden is truly one of my life goals!