loads of Backgammon games, watching the soccer, watching Jane Austen movies, and most importantly of all that Norman & June were a wealth of knowledge on Travelling, the area, and history… Fantastic and Norman successfully out talked us all (well done to him beating four girls at talking!). We stayed four nights at their cosy house in Kelso.
On Friday we headed out in the little car to Norththumbria, we crossed the Scotland/England boarder at Corn Hill, over the Tweed river. There was a marriage house at the Scottish end, which the English used to use for ‘quickie’ & ‘young’ weddings since the scots were allowed to marry at 16yrs of age, and the English system was complicated with the social classes so people used to nip over to avoid these complications.
We eventually made our way to Flodden field. This was the battlefield that used to have boggy ground in the middle valley, which evidently lead to the Scottish defeat against the English. The Scots (fighting for King James IV), fought with long sticks called ‘pikes’. These worked best when used in tight formation. Unfortunately when they got into the boggy ground their formation went wayward. The English (lead by Thomas Howard Earl of Surrey) were advantaged with their lighter guns, and had better close combat weapons. They made quick use of taking out the Scots, and on that day (9th September 1513), 4000 English solders were killed and 10,000 Scots were killed. This was the largest battle between the two nations, with many notable men being killed.
Next we continued South, and on a paddock overlooking Alnwick Castle, we stopped and had the tasty lunch June had lovingly packed for us. The food was great, the view was good, and since we were too cheap to pay to get into the Alnwick Castle & grounds, from there we continued driving along the coast road.
On our way to Bamburgh Castle, the road was rough and ‘wee dot’ bounced happily along. We got to the castle, and just went around the beach to take photos of it, and had fun at the beach.
Really we were taking our time before going to ‘Holy Island’, which had a causeway access, thus we couldn’t cross until low tide at 4:30pm. So while wasting time at the beach Whitey left a message written in the sand that attracted some attention, it read…
“+64(whitey’s number)
Call me if you are male, Christian, hot, rich & keen.
From YT”
So please comment if you feel you fit the aforementioned criteria ☺.
Hmmm now so onto the best part of the day – Holy Island! We crossed the causeway, and walked around the island, unfortunately it was too late to go into the castle there but it was a beautiful island to visit.
SATURDAY.
Today we went to Abby’s castle - Ferniehirst Castle (through her Kerr ancestry), which is nestled in the Jedbrugh forest. We asked for a tour, and much to the guides delight since Abby was a Kerr she got special attention and therefore we all got the “Kerr tour”. Which turned out to be 2 hours long, over a distance of 100 metres. Abby had the guide constantly at her side, while trying to seducing her with his vast knowledge of Kerr’s history. A most incredible 2 hours indeed. It was interesting and extensive, which the castle was very nice and we encouraged Abby to try get some claim on it.
It turns out a lot of Kerr’s are left handed which they often used to their advantage while fighting. So any building that they built would contain at least one left-handed staircase. Thus the left hand nickname ‘kack-handed’ originated from being ‘Kerr handed’ since their family was known for its left-handedness. The Kerr’s were an influential clan in Scotland, and still are to this day especially in politics.
Next we went to Hadrian’s wall. Which was an hour south and over the boarder again.
The wall was impressive since the Romans had made it that far, and the structures they built really set them up well for supporting an army. We wandered around the house-stead site, which was the remains of a roman fortress. It included a hospital & living quarters for family’s, and was one of many forts. The wall runs for Carlyle on the east coast to New Castle on the west.
When we got back to the house June has made a delicious dinner for us, and we finished off the night by watching Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. Beautiful.
SUNDAY.
We went to Church in the morning with Norman & June. It was held in a Café and we enjoyed the service and the coffee afterwards. Today was a relaxed day, after lunch Norman & June took us to Floors Castle where we looked around the grounds and enjoyed the lovely gardens & café there, followed by a short tour of central Kelso.
We had promised June & Norman that we’d cook tea tonight, so after a mighty big cook-up and feed, lots of competitive backgammon games (Kath pretty much was unbeatable) we watched Sense & Sensibility with June, while Norman watched the soccer. We caught the end of the soccer game and it was a most pleasant night. And actually our most late night up… with two retired people!
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