Barnard Castle

A few weeks ago in Barnard Castle I met up with a couple of friends I used to work with . Well we met at Bowes Museum really but decided to have a bit of a wander around Barnard Castle as it was such a sunny day.

Barnard Castle is a small market town in Teesdale, County Durham in the North East of England. It grew up around the medieval castle which is now a ruin. The castle was built by Bernard (Barnard) Baliol in 1112. The Norman castle saw little action in its lifetime and it and fell into disrepair after the Middle Ages. Apparently much of the stonework was carted off for other buildings projects!

                  

As you cross the river behind the castle you can see the remains of one of the castle towers. 

This is a much better view of the castle, sadly not my photograph.

   

Barnard Castle    

© Copyright Ben Gamble and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

I love the old County Bridge below but it's not good when you're driving over it as it's so narrow. There's not much of a path either so you have to be careful crossing the road!

The river was quite low the day we meandered about and the rapids were not very rapid but you can see it was more winter than autumn even though it was October. It was absolutely freezing

We didn't get onto the main street in the town but I found a good photograph of the market place. The flag of St George is flying above the church.

Market Place, Barnard Castle      

© Copyright Ben Gamble and licensed for reuse under thisCreative Commons Licence

There were some really lovely old buildings but I didn't have time to take many photographs.

           

Blagrave's House

Blagrave's House is apparently the oldest house in Barnard Castle. It's been there for over 500 years and Oliver Cromwell dined here. Supposedly! Loved the little statues on the wall above the windows!

Just look at these old windows. 

One of these days I'll have time to take photographs properly instead of point & clicking then racing about constantly trying to catch up with people!

The Bowes Museum

 The Bowes Museum

Last Friday I met up with a couple of friends I used to work with. I retired 5 years ago, one retired about 3 years before me and the other one is still working. We only live about 40 miles from each other but trying to arrange to meet seems to take us ages. We all have commitments of one sort or another however finally we made it last week.

We decided to do an indoor get together as the weather has been so awful and we chose Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. It is a beautiful place and has some amazing collections. The French style chateau was built in the 19th Century and was the first building in Britain to be designed using metric instead of the usual imperial measurements. Seems odd seeing a French chateau in the middle of County Durham but it is a beautiful building.

It has a formal parterre  garden at the front and is surrounded by acres of parkland. The fountain has been restored but wasn't working when we were there. Couldn't be due to any water shortages!

The day turned out to be cold but there was glorious sunshine so we started the day with a coffee in the museum and then decided it was too nice to be inside so we went for a walk around Barnard Castle. I'll save those pictures for another day. We went back to the museum for a delicious lunch and talked so much we didn't have time to tour the museum. We'll have to go back another time!

My photographs were taken with my husband's camera as mine is broken and I'm not that familiar with this one so the light isn't too good. Also the pictures taken quickly as my friends were keen to get on with their walk and I didn't get as many photographs as I would have liked.