Our housesit was in High Etherley, a village just a 10 minute drive from Bishop Auckland. The Brits have an unusual area naming system. We lived in High Etherley Within 3 kms of us there is Low Etherley, Etherley Dene, Etherley Grange & Etherley Moor. Guess they all want their specific area. Our charges were Oscar – the huge Labrador – Mosley and Norman – both ginger cats and Norman is a girl!
There certainly was plenty to do around here so we planned to be out everyday of our 8 days.
Our first adventure was 4 castles in one day, all within 20 kilometres of our home. And there are more but I’m not sure we’re up for too many more.
Barnard Castle – is a ruined medieval castle situated in the town of the same name. It was built around 1095. In 1626 the Crown sold Barnard and Raby castles to Sir Henry Vane who decided to make Raby Castle his principal residence and Barnard Castle was abandoned and its contents and much of its masonry was removed for the maintenance and improvement of Raby Castle.
Raby Castle – a medieval castle set amongst 200 acres of deerpark. The castle is still a private home and remains the seat of the Vane family. Due to dedication to the extensive renovation and restoration works, much of the castle’s rare interior architectural features have been preserved.
Auckland Castle – also known as Auckland Palace and currently under restoration. It is surrounded by 800 acres of parkland, some of which is a deer park. In appearance more like a Gothic Stately Home, Auckland Castle remains a working episcopal palace being the residence and official headquarters of the Bishop of Durham
Witton Castle –Â is a much-altered 15th-century castle, which is the centrepiece of a holiday and caravan country park and is within walking distance and part of our dog walk almost everyday.
A trip to the East Coast beach was one that needed to be done, given all our visits here and never having been to the East coast. I guess if your norm wasn’t The Sunshine coast of Australia or the northern beaches of NZ this would be nice but even in a heatwave it didn’t encourage us onto the sand.
A wet day gave us the opportunity to spend the day indoors and we headed off to the Bowes Museum armed with tickets kindly given to us by our homeowner, Christine. Bowes Museum was a purpose built museum built in the look of a French Chateau by John & Josephine Bowes. (Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother is a direct descendant) It houses an amazing collection of artefacts, relics, china, art and currently has an exhibition of original outfits from the worlds leading fashion houses – Alexander McQueen, Dior, Chanel, Vivienne Westwood etc. The icon of the museum is the automated musical Silver Swan dating from 1773. A good way to spend a wet day.
Durham City
Durham  is a historic city in County Durham in North East England and lies on the River Wear. The Romanesque Durham Cathedral was founded over the final resting place of St Cuthbert and became a centre of pilgrimage in medieval England. The cathedral and adjacent 11th-century castle were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986. The castle has been the home of Durham University since 1832. The river loops around the Cathedral and Castle making it an easy site to protect when under attack. The city dates back to AD995. We found it an easy city to drive into, park, wander the streets, enjoy the history, atmosphere and visit both the Cathedral and castle. Also found the Flat White cafe with lovely food and GREAT coffee.
So it was Goodbye to Oscar, Mosely and Norman and since we hadn’t managed to fit Lincoln into our schedule we decided to make it a quick overnight stop on our way back to Stansted airport. The drive south on the A1 was in torrential rain, heavy traffic with even houses moving in these conditions. It felt incredibly dangerous but we arrived just a short time later than expected. Our B&B was in the Old town and just 100 metres to both the Cathedral and Castle but also perched on the side of a hill making access by car precarious, but Peter managed to get us there safely. We had enough time to visit the Lincoln Cathedral – the final scenes of the DaVinci Code were filmed here. Building of this Cathedral began in 1079 and due to earthquake, fire and storm damage it took many centuries to complete. There is always restoration work happening and in 2014, the Heritage Lottery Fund allocated 12.4 million pounds for continued work. For many years it held one of the 4 remaining copies of the Magna Catra but this is now held in Lincoln Castle. We only had time for a quick look around the Castle grounds as we needed to move on to ensure we didn’t miss our plane to Poland.
We had Penny Peugeot for 22 days without incident until our last drive to Stansted when a truck in front of us threw up a stone and cracked our windscreen. It started as a tiny chip but by the end of our 2 hour trip it was 6 inches long. Luckily it was pouring with rain when we returned the car and the Avis inspector didn’t even look at the windscreen as he was too concerned about getting wet. Fingers crossed we dodged that bullet.
So that’s our time in England finished for this trip. Some observations:
- Supermarket shopping here is so incredibly well priced.
- They are getting on with living and not too worried about Brexit
- The countryside never disappoints and is still really beautiful – albeit in the middle of a heatwave and quite brown in some parts.
- Thank goodness for the lovely little English pubs – both beautiful and hospitable
- Customer Service is slow – something to do with queuing perhaps?
- Beautiful flowers everywhere in the summer
- The northeast has a lot of similarities with NZ – climate, countryside, people
virgoswilltravel 