|
Posted: Saturday 17 May 2008
North East Associates Northumbrian Mystery Tour
- 13th May -
Tuesday 13th May saw several groups of Associates head off into the unknown in a fleet of turquoise coaches, and there's uncertainty as to whether they have returned.
Did they stay in the county of Northumberland or stray into the old Kingdom of Northumbria that once stretched north from the Humber up to Edinburgh?
Did they become lost in the haar that lingered over the cool north east coast while the rest of the country was bathed in warm sunshine?
Who knows?
Some pictures have turned up, but no story to accompany them!
Where did they go? What did they do? Are they coming back?
Clue #1. This is Newbiggin-by-the-Sea in Northumberland.
Clue #2. This is a man-made breakwater. There's another recently constructed as an island in the middle of the bay.
Clue #3. There are two figures standing on a frame in the bay, also repeated on a plinth in the village.
Strange, but serious. Over the last twenty-or-so years tidal erosion removed virtually all the sand from this popular half-mile long beach.
A project in 2007 saw about half a million tons of sand being dredged from the sea bed off the Lincolnshire coast and then pumped back on to the shoreline here to repair the damage. The existing breakwater was modified and the island created to prevent further erosion.
Someone thought it would be a good idea to embellish it.
The Angel of the North shouldn't feel threatened or overshadowed!
Clue #4. Still in Newbiggin, here's a lifeboat - and a lady Associate.
Clue #5. And now a Puffin - larger than life and a little further south than expected.
Clue #6. This is Bamburgh Castle, with the Holy Island of Lindisfarne on the horizon.
Clue #7. Bamburgh Castle again, but Holy Island is a red herring!
Is this the end of the mystery? Is all now being explained? Will Gloria tell?
Bamburgh Castle stands high on a rocky outcrop overlooking the sea. In part an ancient stronghold it was restored and extended in Victorian times by Lord Armstrong, he of armaments and Cragside (NT) fame, for use as a residence.
As well as Holy Island the Northumberland coast boasts the Farne Islands, over twenty of them off Bamburgh, which are protected as a bird sanctuary. The comical looking puffin nests here in large numbers.
It was from one of these islands, where her father was keeper of the Longstone Lighthouse, that local heroine Grace Darling and her father rowed out in a storm to rescue passengers and crew from the stricken steamship "Forfarshire".
That was in 1838. Five people were rescued on the first trip, and nine in all.
Remarkably a lifeboat from the Forfarshire was encountered by a sloop later that day and a further nine people were taken to safety.
A museum in Bamburgh records the event.
The links have been followed, but no Associates have shown yet. Hope they make it back in time for the Stamfordham walk on Tuesday 20th.
(haar = mist)
P.S. A week later a camera was offered containing another thirty pictures, but still none of the group have told their story. There was another clue, though, in that Seahouses has also been identified as one of the stopping places, probably when en-route to Bamburgh. (In May last year a group of South East Region Associates took a boat trip to the Farnes from Seahouses and they all returned same day - safe and well!) Do the NE trippers have a secret? Are they hiding something? The mystery remains, and probably ends here.
pictures: cliff sore
- and that's his wife, penny, beside the lifeboat so it looks as if they're ok
header Image - newbiggin beach before restoration
P.P.S. The writer didn't make this trip!
|
