Exploring Northumberland - October 2025

An expansive panoramic view of the Kielder Forrest.

My October photography blog is about something I did in September; but as I usually write my blog at the start of the month (it's the first today), that will probably be the way it goes. It's a fairly long one this month, so why not sit down with a good cup of tea - I hope you enjoy!

In September, I took a trip to Northumberland with Mrs B and the dog. We enjoyed a week exploring the beautiful countryside and I had a great deal of fun both experimenting with my photography skills at the same time.

Apart from fleeting visits to Craster (Dunstanburgh Castle) and Bedlington on the way back from our honeymoon in Scotland in 2023; the North East of England is an area I've not had much chance to explore, so this holiday has been one that I've very much been looking forward to.

A long journey north...

The trip started with a long car journey from home (on the Wiltshire/ Oxfordshire border) to Northumberland - 315 miles! The Friday traffic on the M1/A1(M) did its best to make the drive pretty tortuous - we had some interesting diversions around Leeds and York; which included an unplanned dog walk around the Towton Battle Field 1461 on the outskirts of Tadcaster. I hadn't got the camera out by this point so my photos were grabbed on my iPhone. We eventually arrived after a 12 hour day at our cottage near the village of West Woodburn.

Rain and Romans

Our first full day was beset by constant drizzle, followed by a traditional British 'down poor', somewhat limiting our exploration. We did manage visits to Corbridge Roman Fort, which is the site of a historic Roman market town as well as Chesters Roman Fort (without the apostrophe is correct, before the pedants arrive!). It was interesting to explore these forts along the path of Hadrian's Wall (with the apostrophe; argh grammar was never my specialty - hope I get this right!).

Sneaking across the border and back again

The second day saw the arrival of the sunshine, which thankfully continued for the rest of the week and enabled me to get the camera out - huzzah! Northumberland is the most northern county in the UK and we knew that we wanted to visit the historic border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed; me being a Scotland enthusiast - I decided to create a driving route through the Scottish Borders to take us on our journey. A stop at the border itself allowed me to play around with shutter speeds and capture a yellow car against the highland countryside in the style of the TV Show - Top Gear. Taking this route also turned up a delightful surprise in a stop in Jedburgh, which has an beautiful Abbey that was built in the 1100s! Once we arrived in Berwick, we enjoyed exploring the historic 14th century town walls and the wonderful dog friendly shops on the high street.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

Our third and fourth day took us back over to the Coast . We had a couple of rather long road journeys due to road closures following some landslides and the forest fires over the summer - but the journeys were well worth it. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting the seaside village of Seahouses as well as the town of Amble. One of the highlights was an afternoon at Banburgh Castle, which has impressive grounds and overlooks Holy Island (Lindisfarne) and presents an interesting place to visit for history enthusiasts - the grounds are dog friendly as well, so makes it an easy place to visit and share exploration of the castle between two. Another highlight was the fantastic National Trust beach at Druridge Bay, which is also dog friendly - this expansive beach has the feel of amazing beaches like Woolacombe in Devon without the tourist trappings and we almost had the whole beach to ourselves.

Cragside, Kielder and Hareshaw Linn

Our fifth day took us to the fantastic National Trust property at Cragside, a trove of Victorian invention - but there was even more to find than that. This has to be one of the most varied properties we've visited with our membership and I got to enjoy a challenging 6 mile walk around the grounds taking in waterfalls, lakes and woodland.

Our final full day of activity took us to the Kielder (England's largest forest) and finally to Hareshaw Linn. The Kielder Forest is expansive and scenic with one of the highlights being a fantastic 13-mile forest drive which takes you through the heart of the forest and up to the height of 1500ft (460 metres) above sea level where you can enjoy the views from Blakehope Nick which has a modern architectural marvel viewing platform allowing you to really capture the beautiful surrounding landscape - a photographer's dream come true! Hareshaw Linn is a stunning waterfall hidden near Bellingham. It's a challenging 1.5 mile walk up from the car park; but the peaceful serenety that awaits you at the end is special. I have a longheld affinity with waterfalls (not sure why) and this gave me a change to practice some long exposures for that perfect milky affect you see so often on social media pages!

I hope you've enjoyed reading about the trip and looking through some of the highlight photos. It was a memorable one and we certainly hope to visit Northumberland again in the future!

Until next time...