Bamburgh Castle

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Bamburgh Castle from the northeast

Bamburgh Castle is located in Bamburgh on the coast of the English county of Northumberland . English Heritage has listed it as a Grade I Historic Building.

History of the Bamburgh Castle

Bamburgh Castle - geograph.org.uk - 1030813.jpg
Bamburgh Castle's southwest facade from the ground and from the air

The space on a Diabasvorsprung originally housed a fort of the Celtic Britons named Din Guarie and was probably the capital of the British kingdom this region (see Gododdin , Bernicia and hen ogledd ) from the Empire about 420 to 547, the year of the first written mention of the Castle. That year the citadel was taken by the Anglo-Saxon ruler Ida von Bernicia and became Ida's lordship. It was briefly recaptured from the British during the time of his son Hussa in the War of 590, but was horrified again in the same year.

The grandson Æðelfriþ bequeathed the castle to his wife Bebba , from which the early name Bebbanburgh is derived. The Vikings destroyed the original fortification in 993.

The Normans built a new castle on the same site , which forms the core of today's castle. William II besieged it in 1095 during a revolt supported by its owner, Robert de Mowbray , Earl of Northumbria , without success. After Robert de Mowbray was imprisoned, his wife continued the defense until she was forced to surrender by the king's threat to blind her husband.

Bamburgh then became the property of the ruling monarch of England. Heinrich II probably had the donjon built. As an important English outpost, the castle was the target of occasional attacks by the Scots . In 1464, during the Wars of the Roses , Bamburgh Castle was the first English castle to be defended with artillery at the end of a nine-month siege by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick .

The Forster family of Northumberland provided the crown with twelve successive governors of the castle for 400 years until the crown finally gave it to Sir John Forster . The family continued to own the castle until Sir William Forster was declared posthumously bankrupt after his death in 1700 and his estates, including the castle , were sold by parliamentary law to Lord Crew , Bishop of Durham and husband of his sister Dorothy , to settle his debts .

The castle fell into disrepair and was restored by various owners in the 18th and 19th centuries. Eventually it was bought by Victorian tycoon William Armstrong , who completed the restoration.

In World War II, which was corvette of the Royal Navy HMS Bamborough Castle after the castle named.

The 1973 aerial photo shows the location of the castle northeast of the village of Bamburgh

The castle still belongs to the Armstrong family today, but is open to the public. Weddings and corporate events take place there. The castle has been used as a film set since the 1920s. B. for the films Ivanhoe - The Black Knight (1952), El Cid (1961), Maria Stuart, Queen of Scotland (1971), Elizabeth (1998), Macbeth (2015) and Transformers: The Last Knight (2017).

neighborhood

About 14 km south of Bamburgh Castle is the old fortress Dunstanburgh Castle on the coast and about 8 km north of Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island .

environment

The air quality around Bamburgh Castle is excellent as there is no industry in the area. According to the Northumberland Sound Mapping Study from June 2003, the noise on the north-south connecting road at Bamburgh Castle is between 59 and 63 dB (A) during the day. There are breeding colonies of arctic tern and common tern on the Inner Farne Islands and of puffins , cormorants and razorbills on Staple Island nearby .

Archeology in Bamburgh

Since 1996, the Bamburgh Research Project has been digging and studying history in the castle and the Bamburgh area. The project focuses on the fortress and the early medieval burial ground in the '' Bowl Hole '' south of the castle.

The first excavations were carried out in the 1960s by Dr. Brian Hope-Taylor , who also found the gold plaque called Bamburgh Beast and the Bamburgh Sword .

Each summer, part of the project is an 8-week training excavation for students so that they can learn more about archaeological techniques and for further investigations at the castle.

Armstrong and Aviation Artefacts Museum

The Armstrong and Aviation Artefacts Museum is housed in the castle's former laundry, which houses exhibits about the Victorian tycoon William Armstrong and the Armstrong Whitworth company he founded . These exhibits include machines, artillery and weapons, as well as air force parts from two world wars.

Bamburgh Castle in film, television and books

Bamborough Castle floor plan 1825

The late medieval British writer Thomas Malory took Bamburgh Castle as a model for Joyous Gard , the mythical castle of Lancelot in the Arthurian legend .

In literature, Bamburgh, under its Saxon name Bebbanburg, is the seat of Uhtred , the main actor in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Tales . It serves in all of the books in the series either as an important plot location or as an inspiration for the protagonist. It begins with The Last Kingdom (2004) and continues with The White Rider (2005), The Lords of the North (2006), Sword Song (2007), The Burning Land (2009), The Dying King (2011), The Heidenfürst (2013 ), The Empty Throne (2015) and The Dark Warriors (2016) , as well as The Flame Bearer in 2017 .

The castle also appears in the book Ragnarök by Anne Thackery and is the home of the main protagonist and heroine, the wife of the ruler of Din Gardi. In the book called the castle Din Gardi , and then after the daughter of the heroine, Bebba in Bebbanburgh renamed.

In addition, Bamburgh Castle has served as a location for a number of films and television series.

In film, television and literature (selection)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Images of England: Bamburgh Castle . English Heritage. Archived from the original on October 22, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 12, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.imagesofengland.org.uk
  2. ^ NJ Higham: An English empire: Bede and the early Anglo-Saxon kings . Manchester University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-7190-4423-5 , ISBN 978-0-7190-4423-6
  3. ^ Rev. James Raine MA: The History and Antiquities of North Durham . 1840. pp. 306-310: History and pedigree of Forster family .
  4. ^ Website of the Bamburgh Research Project . Retrieved February 13, 2015.

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Web links

Commons : Bamburgh Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 55 ° 36 ′ 28.8 "  N , 1 ° 42 ′ 32.4"  W.