Belford, Northumberland

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Belford, Northumberland
Belford, Northumberland

As is now traditional on the May Day weekend, we met our friends Valerie and Kenn somewhere between their home in West Yorkshire and ours in Glasgow. This time, the choice was Northumberland, specifically Belford, a coaching stop on the main A1 road from London to Edinburgh until it was bypassed in 1983.

Belford
Belford
Wee window
Interesting building
Detail
Memorial bench

It was quite sleepy-looking when we were there, although it livened up with the Saturday morning market. Its coaching past was also evident with the historic Blue Bell Hotel.

Blue Bell Hotel
Blue Bell Hotel
Blue Bell Hotel
CTC symbol
The blue bell

Our own accommodation, a former farmhouse, was called Bluebell (all one word) Lodge so it covered all bases by having a blue bell and bluebells (just visible on the middle window upstairs). It was very comfortable and so spacious that we could all have sat in separate rooms if we’d fallen out – which we didn’t, of course.

Bluebell Lodge
Bluebell Lodge
The bell
Stream view
Reading matter

We were also provided with plenty of reading material – the landlord seemed to know several authors who had left collections of their books. If the weather had been really bad, we would have had plenty to choose from. It wasn’t – mainly bright, but too cold to sit out in the garden or on the tiny little deck over the stream which ran down the side of the house.

So what did we do? Castles galore! More to come…

England, UK ,

44 Comments »

  1. Great blog post! definitely something that interests me. Im new to blogging, would you mind following me and checking out my own too? Great Read! x Bex ps. im local and its lovely to see people enjoying northumberland as much as i do x

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  3. I love all the old buildings with stone. And that sun-washed, peeling paint. True rustic, and just gorgeous. I hope the event went well! Kind of cool that the owner just left the books for others to pick up. ^-^

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  6. This looks like a beautiful place to visit especially since it is not crazy busy. I love some of these pictures…just so nice looking.

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  14. Loved Northumberland when I visited several years ago; fell in love with the landscape and the beaches, the castles and the people. We must have driven past Belford on the A1 as we went to Lindisfarne and then Bamburgh Castle. That’s the trouble with by-passes, you miss these pretty little towns.

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  18. I love the idea of meeting up in different places, combining the social aspect with the exploring aspect. So many towns and areas to discover, together! So much to see and do, so much to catch up on with long term friends. I’m glad you enjoyed it and curious about the castles!

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    • Thanks, Ellen. We have known each other a long time and visited each other’s homes so many times that we had run out of new places to go. It seemed a good idea to start meeting up somewhere else, and it works well.

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