The Kingdom in the North – Bamburgh, Northumberland, United Kingdom

Let’s explore one of the most dramatic castles in Britain, Bamburgh in Northumberland

Cadwallader Bates, the pleasingly Arthurian-sounding 19th-century historian, wrote of Bamburgh Castle as “the very cornerstone of England”. Fifteen hundred years ago, it quite literally was. Its pre-Anglo Saxon name, Din Guarie, even encouraged some to believe that this fortress, towering aloft dolerite rock, was once the “Joyous Guard” of Arthurian legend, castle of Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad.

Visitors to the castle today will find the sandstone monolith strikingly situated between the village of Bamburgh in Northumberland – the northernmost county in England – and the Farne Islands, which lie a couple of miles off the coastline and house a famous seabird sanctuary.

Fiery Beginnings

There have been settlements at Bamburgh since prehistoric times (regular archaeological digs take place here and spectacular finds have included a gold plaque known as the Bamburgh Beast and the Bamburgh Sword) but for its earliest recorded origins, we must go back to AD 547. That fateful year in the life of the castle was when the Germanic King Ida the Flamebearer and his fierce invaders, known as the Angles, who hailed from the German/Danish border, seized Bamburgh.

By the early 5th century, the Romans had all but left Britain after three-and-a-half centuries of rule, rendering the country’s internal borders defenceless. Making full use of their advantage, for over a century the Angles had busied themselves raging and raiding their way through East Anglia, Lincolnshire and up into Yorkshire. But it was in AD 547 that they made their most important acquisition yet: that of Bamburgh. While Ida no doubt held strongholds in the region, the then Din Guarie was by far the most significant in the establishment of his emerging kingdom of Bernicia, which was centred on the rivers Tyne and Wear. It became his capital and thus the seat of the most powerful leader in northern “Angle Land” (which, of course, later came to be known as England).

By AD 603, Ida’s grandson, the fiercesome King Aethelfrith of Bernicia, seized control of Deira (known today as the Yorkshire Wolds). He defeated rival Angle chief Aelle in Deira, as well as the Celts, to form, with the unification of Bernicia and Deira, a new kingdom: Northumbria. This powerful new realm constituted almost a third of Britain’s mainland.

To perceive Bamburgh as the cornerstone of England was, then, no exaggeration; at the height of its power, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain were ruled jointly from York and Bamburgh and the province remained ferociously autonomous right up until the Norman Conquest.

In homage to his wife Bebba, King Aethelfrith named the castle – or “burgh” – after her. And hers was no nominal influence; she ruled Bamburgh herself after her husband’s death. Over time, Bebba’s Burgh would be compounded as Bamburgh.

The reign of king and saint Oswald – successor to Aethelfrith – who ruled during the 7th and 8th centuries, would come to be known as the “golden age” of Northumbria, during which time he ruled jointly from Bamburgh Castle and a monastery in nearby Lindisfarne and introduced Christianity to the kingdom. But post this golden time, after the eventual demise of the Anglo-Saxon rulers, Bamburgh Castle has endured, enjoying a long and often chequered after-life.

First to Fall

Bamburgh lays claim to the dubious honour of having been the very first castle in the country to come under cannon fire. During the Wars of the Roses, the fortress – as a Lancastrian stronghold – became a place of refuge for King Henry VI and his wife Queen Margaret of Anjou, after a heavy defeat in battle at Hexham by the Yorkists in May 1464. At that time, Bamburgh constituted the sum total of his kingdom for the straitened monarch. Battered and disconsolate, he held court there until he came under siege from a heavily armed Edward IV. Despite its robust and sturdy walls, the citadel eventually buckled under the cannons after being laid siege to for nine long months at the hands of Yorkist Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick. Henry VI had been defeated.

The original structure of Bamburgh had been demolished when the citadel was taken by the Vikings in 993. What stands in its stead today is a slice of fascinatingly layered history. The Normans built a new castle on the site. It is thought that King Henry II constructed the keep after the castle became the property of the reigning English monarch in the 11th century when William Rufus, the third son of William the Conqueror, set his sights on it.

Later, Bamburgh was used variously as a school, a hospital for the poor and a refuge for shipwrecked sailors after the last of the Forster family, in whose possession the castle had been for 400 years, was declared posthumously bankrupt and the castle passed to her husband, Nathaniel Crew, who was Bishop of Durham.

Victorian Revival

The bulk of the extant fairytale-style building, however, is relatively modern, having been restored by Sir William Armstrong, a Victorian industrialist, who bought Bamburgh in 1894 and without whom the castle might have fallen into total disrepair. Sir Armstrong’s legacy has been lasting. He reconstructed the King’s Hall, which retains original medieval arches and today the Armstrong family continues to live at their ancestral home.

Visitors can wander its 14 public rooms, and admire 2,000 artefacts spanning its extraordinary history. For many visitors, however, Bamburgh Castle may seem strangely familiar, thanks to one of its more glamorous latter incarnations as a film set.

Directors including Roman Polanski, Ken Russell and Shekhar Kapur have all chosen the astonishing castle as the backdrop to movies including Elizabeth and The Devils.

Most recently, none other than Michael Fassbender could be seen wrestling with his ambition and his soul as Macbeth in the Justin Kurzel adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy. As the apotheosis of the medieval castle, it has graduated from welcoming the most feted kings and queens throughout history to the most distinguished kings and queens of the silver screen. Long may she reign over the north.