| BAMBURGH
CASTLE The first fortress on the Great Whin Sill
outcrop at Bamburgh, according to the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, was erected in 547 by Ida, King of
Bernicia (the northern half of the Anglo-Saxon
kingdom of Northumbria). When Ida's grandson,
Etheifrith, King of Northumbria from 593 to 616,
gave the fortress to his first wife, Bebba, the
settlement became known as 'Bebba's Burgh' or
'Bebbanburgh' (from which the name Bamburgh is
derived). After the Norman Conquest, the
castle was rebuilt in stone as a Border fortress
against incursions by the Scots. It became the
first castle in England to fall to artillery
fire, when it was captured by Edward IV during
the Wars of the Roses.
In 1610 the
Crown gave the property to Claudius Forster,
whose descendants allowed the castle to fall into
decay. Restoration of the castle was begun in the
eighteenth century by Nathaniel Crewe, Bishop of
Durham, and completed at great expense by the
Victorian industrialist (and owner of Cragside),
William, 1st Lord Armstrong, whose family still
owns the property. It is open to the public.
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