Belsay

We drove out on Sunday morning to see Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens. This is a Regency country home, considered the first to be built in the Greek Revival style. It was built to replace the nearby castle. Today, both castle and hall are just shadows of their former selves, with the castle open to the elements. The hall is a shell, and had been left to fall into neglect by the Middleton family. Only necessary repairs to keep the structure weathertight and upright were undertaken.

This has now all changed. A major reconstruction project is going on, which means that the entire hall is covered in scaffolding, which does not make for an edifying spectacle. The rooms are also empty and crucial features covered up whilst they complete the restoration. A few placards dotted around contain a bare minimum of information about the rooms. The ionic and doric columns, the principal feature of the house, are covered up.

It's covered in scaffolding!

There's not much in the rooms

They have a carriage

The tour of the house did not detain us for long. We were offered a "scaffolding tour", but decided not to wait around for that - the next one wasn't until 1230. 

However, one of the interesting features about the place is that it was built from local sandstone…and by “local”, they mean “within the grounds”. A large part of the grounds is now the Quarry Garden, which is a garden set in deep ravines and tunnels from where the rock was quarried on-site. This provides a micro-climate that allows exotic plants to grow in an area where normally they would not survive. This is the kind of thing that was very popular with 19 century types. At the end of the walk, we reached the ruined castle, which is also very picturesque. It's not on the scale of Alnwick and Bamburgh that we've visited recently, but even so, it must have been very impressive when it was a residence. 

The castle

The quarry

Afterwards we stopped at the café and lunched on a local delicacy, known as stotties. Basically a bread roll, but one that bounces, apparently. Ours had sausage and onion jam.

That’s it for the North East, tomorrow we Go West.