LINDINSFARNE CASTLE

Every few summers we travel to Oxford to take a class and live on campus--The Oxford Experience.  I've posted about our previous trips in the past--loved every one of them.  Our Oxford Experience trips are combined with a one week visit to a country we haven't traveled and then an additional five nights somewhere new to us in the English countryside.

Last summer we chose Northumberland England and loved every mile of it.  We flew from Bergen to Oslo to Edinburgh and then drove about 90 minutes south to Lindinsfarne Castle on Holy Island.  Apparently I did not take the classic picture of Lindinsfarne Castle but that is most likely because I was driving across the tidal causeway.  Kind of exciting checking safe crossing times before we scheduled our trip.

This is the view from the garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll.  Gertrude designed the gardens and area surrounding the castle while Edwin Lutyens renovated the interiors back in the early 1900's.  What a treat to see their work in person.

The above pic is one of my favorite rooms in the house and it just kills me I couldn't get a better shot--it was dark in the house and crowded--that is my sad little excuse.

Edward Hudson, founder and publisher of Country Life magazine, bought this property in 1901.  At the time, it was a crumbling castle built sometime around the mid-1500's.  Hudson commissioned Edwin Lutyens, a young architect, and Gertrude Jekyll, famous gardener, (otherwise known as Ned and Bumps!), to transform the place and make it Hudson's holiday retreat.

                                                                           The Study

                                    The walled garden with the North Sea on the other side

Gertrude Jekyll's work is impressive--cannot image having success growing flowers with all the wind, stony ground, and right on the coastline.  Of course, that's why it's inside a walled garden.

The classic Lutyens garden bench

                                                  Next stop: Alnwick Castle