Northumberland: Hadrian’s Wall, Kielder skies and the castle coast
Nine days through England’s emptiest county, from the cathedral rock of Durham to the quays of Newcastle. The road follows Hadrian’s Wall along the crags of the Whin Sill, climbs into the forest around Kielder Water, where the night sky is among the darkest in Europe, and then turns towards the sea: Cragside, the first house in the world lit by water power, the Percy castle at Alnwick, the kipper smokehouses of Craster, Dunstanburgh alone on its headland, Bamburgh above the dunes and Holy Island across its tidal causeway. Berwick’s ramparts close the circle at the Scottish border. Fast chargers wait in Durham, Hexham, Alnwick, Berwick and Newcastle; the Kielder valley and the small coastal villages are slow-socket country.
