Northumberland is England's northernmost county and its least crowded, a wedge of land running from the Tyne valley up to the Scottish border at Berwick-upon-Tweed. It covers roughly 5,000 square kilometres and holds fewer than 320,000 people, which works out at one of the lowest population densities in the country. That statistic explains most of what visitors notice first: beaches with nobody on them in August, single-track roads over the Cheviots where you meet more sheep than cars, and a night sky dark enough to be protected by international designation.
The county divides neatly into three. The coast runs about 100 kilometres from the mouth of the Tyne to the Tweed, much of it designated a National Landscape, with dune systems, tidal islands and a string of castles built to watch for Scottish raiders and Viking longships. Inland, the Northumberland National Park covers a quarter of the county, taking in the central section of Hadrian's Wall, the Simonside ridge, the Cheviot Hills and the forest and reservoir around Kielder. Between the two lies gentler farming country and market towns such as Morpeth, Rothbury, Wooler and Alnwick.
What ties it together is a long history of being fought over. This was the Roman empire's northern limit, then the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, then for three hundred years the Border reivers' territory, where cattle raiding was a way of life and even farmhouses were built as fortified bastles. The result is a landscape studded with defensive architecture: more castles than any other English county, plus pele towers, bastles and the wall itself. It is not a manicured place. Weather blows in off the North Sea, the light changes constantly, and a good deal of the appeal is in the scale and emptiness rather than in anything ticketed.
Top things to do in Northumberland
The county rewards a mix of days: one for castles, one for the Roman frontier, one for a beach or a boat, and one for doing very little at all.
- Bamburgh Castle — a vast fortress on a basalt outcrop directly above the dunes, visible for miles along the coast and still lived in by the Armstrong family; the King's Hall and the archaeology gallery are the highlights inside.
- Alnwick Castle and The Alnwick Garden — the second-largest inhabited castle in England, familiar from Harry Potter and Downton Abbey, paired with a separately ticketed contemporary garden that includes the Poison Garden, a huge cascade and the Lilidorei play village.
- Hadrian's Wall at Housesteads and Steel Rigg — the best-preserved Roman fort in Britain sits on the Whin Sill escarpment, and the walk west from Steel Rigg past Sycamore Gap gives the most dramatic stretch of the whole frontier.
- Roman Vindolanda — an active excavation where the waterlogged soil has preserved leather shoes, textiles and the celebrated writing tablets; digs run through the summer and visitors can watch archaeologists at work.
- The Farne Islands — boat trips from Seahouses run out to a seabird colony of puffins, guillemots, kittiwakes and Arctic terns, with a large grey seal population that pups in late autumn.
- Holy Island of Lindisfarne — reached by a causeway that floods twice daily, with the ruined priory, the Lutyens-remodelled castle and a working community of a couple of hundred people; check the safe crossing times before you set off.
- Kielder Water and Forest Park — northern Europe's largest man-made lake surrounded by England's largest forest, with lakeside cycling, an art and architecture trail and the Kielder Observatory at the heart of the International Dark Sky Park.
- Dunstanburgh Castle — a fourteenth-century ruin on a headland with no road access, reached by a level 1.3-mile walk from Craster along the cliff top past nesting kittiwakes.
Getting to Northumberland
The East Coast Main Line runs the length of the county, which makes rail an unusually good option. LNER trains from London King's Cross reach Newcastle in about three hours, Alnmouth in roughly three and a half, and Berwick-upon-Tweed in around three and three-quarter hours. Alnmouth is the station for Alnwick, about four miles inland, with a connecting bus and taxis outside. Morpeth, Cramlington and Chathill also have stations, and the Northumberland Line reopened commuter services between Newcastle and Ashington. From Edinburgh, Berwick is under an hour.
By road, the A1 is the spine, running from the Tyne Tunnel north to the border and passing within a few miles of Alnwick, Bamburgh and Holy Island. It is dual carriageway as far as Morpeth and single carriageway for long stretches beyond, so allow more time than the mileage suggests in high summer. For Hadrian's Wall country, leave the A69 west of Hexham; the parallel B6318 Military Road is the scenic alternative and passes the main forts. The A68 north from Corbridge over Carter Bar is the most spectacular route into Scotland.
Newcastle International Airport is the only sizeable airport, about 20 minutes from the city on the Metro and roughly 40 minutes' drive from Morpeth. Parking at the big attractions is generally paid but plentiful; the exceptions are the coastal villages, where Craster, Beadnell, Low Newton and Bamburgh fill by mid-morning on summer weekends, and the Holy Island causeway car park, which empties and refills around the tide.
Best time to visit Northumberland
Late spring is arguably the best all-round window. From April the puffins are back on the Farnes and stay until late July, the coastal paths are dry, the sea pinks flower on the cliffs, and the crowds are still thin. Days are already long this far north — by June the light lingers past ten in the evening.
Summer brings the warmest sea and the fullest programme of events, but also the only real congestion the county sees. July and August are when Bamburgh and Beadnell car parks overflow and campsites need booking well ahead. The trade-off is that walking two or three hundred metres along almost any beach still gets you clear of everyone.
Autumn is underrated. September and October bring settled weather, heather colour on the moors above Rothbury, grey seal pups on the Farnes from late September, and the return of proper darkness for stargazing after the light summer nights. Kielder Observatory's programme is busiest from October onwards, and booking is essential.
Winter is cold, windy and often beautiful. Many coastal cafes and some attractions close or reduce hours from November to February, and Alnwick Castle shuts for the season entirely, but the wall country under frost and the empty beaches on a bright January day are worth the layers. Snow can close the higher Cheviot and Military Road routes.
Where to stay in Northumberland
The coast between Alnmouth and Bamburgh is the obvious base for a first visit. Bamburgh is the most photogenic and the most expensive, a small village entirely dominated by its castle, with a handful of hotels and a lot of self-catering. Seahouses next door is busier and more functional — this is where the Farnes boats leave from — and better value with families in mind. Beadnell and Craster are quieter, the latter little more than a harbour, a smokehouse and a pub.
Alnwick works well as a base for people who want a proper town: independent shops, Barter Books in the old railway station, restaurants that stay open out of season, and the castle and garden on the doorstep. Berwick-upon-Tweed at the northern end has Elizabethan ramparts you can walk in full, a railway station on the main line and the cheapest hotel rates on the coast.
Inland, Hexham and Corbridge suit anyone focused on Hadrian's Wall, both handsome market towns on the Tyne with good pubs and easy access to Housesteads and Vindolanda. Rothbury and the Coquet valley suit walkers heading for Simonside and the Cheviots, and Kielder and Bellingham are the choices for stargazers and cyclists who want the forest on their doorstep. Couples looking for something more indulgent tend towards the country-house hotels and restored inns scattered across the mid-county, several of which sit in villages with nothing else in them at all.
Food and drink in Northumberland
The signature product is the Craster kipper, a herring cold-smoked over oak in the Robson family smokehouse in Craster, which has been running since the 1880s. Buy them from the shop or eat them for breakfast almost anywhere on the coast. Beyond that, the county's cooking leans on what the land produces: hill lamb, beef, venison and game from the estates, and shellfish landed at Amble, Seahouses and North Shields.
Seafood is the reason to eat on the coast. Craster's Jolly Fisherman is known for its crab soup and sea views, the Ship Inn at Low Newton-by-the-Sea brews its own beer beside a green that opens straight onto the beach, and the fish and chip shops in Seahouses and Amble are worth the queue. Amble's Harbour Village and its lobster hatchery are a good stop for takeaway shellfish. Inland, the pub food at village inns around Hexham and Blanchland is consistently better than the setting suggests.
For drinks, St Aidan's Winery on Holy Island makes Lindisfarne Mead, a honey and grape fortified wine sold across the county and unavoidable in gift shops. There is a strong independent brewing scene — Wylam, Allendale, Hadrian Border and Anarchy among others — plus Hepple Gin, distilled near Rothbury using juniper from the surrounding moor, and Alnwick Rum, revived from an old Northumbrian recipe. Alnwick and Hexham both hold regular farmers' markets, and the Alnwick Food Festival and Berwick's food events are fixtures of the late-summer calendar. For baking, look out for singin' hinnies, a griddled currant scone, and stotty cake, the flat round loaf still sold in bakeries across the region.
