Northumberland Odyssey Part 2

For B's birthday, we travelled over to Wooler, and included some rock art and good eating. Perfect!

First stop was Prudhoe Castle to visit the prehistoric rock art, and to be honest the best things here are outdoors - the museum inside is fairly crap unless you have to entertain kids. The ruins are interesting, complete with staircases that go nowhere and wild flora outside. Some good pictures here.

After climbing Ros Castle we visited Chillingham Churchyard. Another interesting graveyard, Robert Jopson had a lovely headstone:

Here LYet hthe
Body of Robe
rtJopson of
Hebburn who
died the 4th of
august in the
year 1730
in the 64 year
of his life

I couldn't read the name of the owner of this beautifully innocent verse:

My friends go home
& ceace from tears I
Most ly hear til christ
A peares

We then headed to our favourite B&B West Weetwood Farmhouse. It's completely fab and lovely both inside and out. We went for dinner to the Tankerville, including banana and black pudding salad (gorgeous!) and half-a-sheep-on-a-plate (aka Blade of Lamb).

The gardens at the B&B are magical (in the Secret Garden sense), so we took a wander next moring before the grand breakfast. Then off to Routing Linn to see the rock art and waterfall. The hope was to see the bluebells but we were a bit early for the main event, although a few were peeping through. We saw lots of other wildflowers and B reckons he saw a large black cat...

Lunch at Milfield Tearoom was followed by a visit to Maelmin - the recontructed hut has been re-reconstructed after vandalism a couple of years ago, and a handsome new wooden building has been added.

On the way back west we went to Tod Crags - some wonderful scenery around there.

Prudhoe Castle:

<= Wild Garlic

Chillingham Churchyard:

<=cool swirly eyes

West Weetwood Farmhouse:


<= "Leeky roof? What leeky roof?"

Routing Linn:

<= wood sorrel and waterfall

<= opportunistic primrose

<=spot the cotyledon leaves

Maelmin Trail:

Finally, Tod Crags: