Bamburgh Castle - ancient fortress
Date: 2004-09-20, Publication: The Journal
It is the North-East's Rock of Ages - an unbeatable combination of natural and man-made grandeur.
Bamburgh Castle, sitting on its great mound of volcanic rock facing the sea, is one of the defining sights of the North.
The ultimate in natural fortresses, the Northumbrian site has been occupied and defended for 2,000 years.
For many years it was the centre of royal power, adding to its extraordinary presence in the landscape.
In the Iron Age this outcrop of the Whin Sill was likely to have been the defended base of a regional chieftain and the year 547 is the traditional date given for the occupation of Bamburgh by the Anglo-Saxon King Ida.
Bamburgh became the royal citadel of the kings of Bernicia, who eventually absorbed the neighbouring kingdom of Deira.
That created the kingdom of Northumbria, and the Venerable Bede suggests that the name of Bamburgh came from Bebba, the wife of King Ida's grandson, Ethelfrith.
The site was called Bebbaburgh, or Bebba's fortress - and it must have been impressive.
For Simeon of Durham wrote in 774: "The city of Bebba is extremely well fortified. It has a church of very beautiful architecture, in which is a shrine. In this, wrapped in a pall, lies the uncorrupted right hand of St Oswald."
It was Oswald who was instrumental in setting up a monastery on nearby Lindisfarne in 625.
The Christian king, after triumphing at the Battle of Heavenfield, near Chollerford, in Northumberland in 642 against the Celtic king Cadwalla, was himself killed in a clash with Penda of Mercia. Oswald's body was hacked to pieces but they were removed from the battlefield by his brother and deposited as relics in churches.
His arm is believed to have been placed in the Bamburgh fortress church.
For such an important site, Bamburgh had been the subject of surprisingly little archaeological investigation.
Dr Brian Hope-Taylor, who died in 2001, did carry out a series of excavation up to the 1970s, and this is now being built upon.
The on-going Bamburgh Project, which is led by archaeologists Phil Wood, Graeme Young, Paul Gething and Gerry Twomey, carried out a radar survey on the church site.
It detected what appeared to be an underground vaulted chamber, which could be an Anglo-Saxon crypt used to house the St Oswald relic.
The project has also investigated the well which served the Bamburgh royal household and which still exists today.
At more than 130ft deep, it was found to be an astonishing feat of human labour.
The first 66ft was cut through the extremely hard dolerite rock, with the same length being dug through sandstone and smoothly finished.
Graeme Young says: "The well was cut from the highest point of the rock and must rate as a remarkable piece of Northumbrian engineering.
"This represents a remarkable technical achievement and an immense human effort, reflecting the importance that a secure water supply held for the defence of a fortress."
Dr Hope-Taylor's dig in 1971 unearthed along with 70 Anglian coins and a sword, a small gold plaque engraved with a creature later called the Bamburgh Beast.
In 1894, construction work uncovered layers of what is believed to have been kitchen waste in a hollow in the rock.
The layers included an early 9th Century styca coin and the bones of ox, sheep, pig, deer, and the shells of oyster, mussel, limpet, and periwinkle which gives an insight into the diet of those who lived in the citadel at that time.
One of the major Bamburgh finds came in the 19th Century, when a carved stone piece was discovered as undergrowth was cleared.
For years it was thought to be part of an Anglo-Saxon cross but Prof Rosemary Cramp from Durham University re-examined the stone and identified it as a section of the arm of a chair, which could have been the throne of the kings of Northumbria.
The Normans took over the Bamburgh site. A mighty keep was built in the 12th Century and survives reasonably intact. During the medieval period, Bamburgh developed as a sophisticated castle.
Among the kings who stayed at Bamburgh were John, Henry III, and Edward I, II and III.
In 1328 the castle resisted a three-month Scottish siege and two more in 1333 and 1346. But it could not cope with the evolution of artillery and was badly damaged by cannon fire in 1462 in a 14-day Wars of the Roses siege.
Bamburgh was, in fact, the first castle in England to fall to artillery fire.
In 1704 it was bought by Nathaniel, Lord Crewe, the last of the Prince Bishops of Durham.
At the end of the 19th Century its owner was the Tyneside industrialist and inventor Lord Armstrong and he began the reconstruction of the castle as a grand residence.
Today, the castle is still the home of the Armstrong family and its spectacular setting attracts 100,000 visitors a year Back to Archive | 
