Cragside

Iron bridge

We woke up to  brilliant blue skies – a true summer’s day – hurray.  We decided to explore Cragside today – a huge National Trust Estate not far from here.  It is home to the first home powered by hydro-electricity and I’m sure would have been really interesting to learn about it all, if you didn’t have a 6 year old constantly tugging at you to move on.  Oh hum…  

Cragside House

The main reason we went was to do some walking as the estate is absolutely enormous and riddled with paths.  We decided to do a 3 mile walk which would take us to the top of the estate, round by a lake and to the adventure playground.  It sounded perfect for us.  First stop though was the rock garden and an iron bridge spanning, both of which were really handsome.  Then we headed off on the walk.  Tom was our pathfinder,  we were his troops.  Every time he spotted a red disc which waymarked our route, he would shout ‘attention’ and we would have to stand to attention and salute him.  Just as well we didn’t bump into anyone we knew!!!!!

Soldiers standing to 'ATTENTION'

The walk was very pleasant amongst Rhododendrons which were beginning to burst into colour.  There were very many large boulders from the crags, the sky was blue, the views very pleasant which made for a good  time.  The path seemed much much longer than the 3 miles it was advertised at (Matt’s app on his phone recorded it as just over 5 in the end?} it did take quite a while to get to the children’s play area – mind you with all the saluting, view spotting, tree climbing (Matt found a good one and went a fair way up) we weren’t exactly moving fast!  

Tree climber

We got to the adventure play area at noon, so Tom had a little play and then we picked up some sandwiches for lunch and went and had them down by the lake – a very lovely outlook.  We went down for a look afterwards and found lots of fat tadpoles (no frogs though – boo!).

Someone here is heavy!

We carried on round the trail and before too long found ourselves back at the house.  We decided to go for a tour round as it is newer than most National Trust properties and with the hydro-electric connection we thought it would be interesting (it used to have a hydro-electric powered elevator in it).  

Luminous leaves

However, it was stuffed full of people and Tom was in his usual  ‘lets do this as fast as possible mode’.  We did see some good bits though including a fantastic plunge pool (almost Japanese in style) and spa area.  There was the most enormous marble fire place on the second floor – bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before.  There were also quite a few Japanese exhibits (apparently the family had business connections over there).  The kitchen was enormous with one of the biggest and most handsome ranges I have ever seen – shame we visited today as tomorrow they are having a special baking day.  The rooms and architecture was pretty interesting – given a chance I would like to go again without the crowds.

3 men

Once done (Tom had a quiz to find lots of musical exhibits) we headed back to the car and then drove the Estate drive which takes you 6 miles around the grounds including right through the main house (very surprising!).  This was lovely , we parked up in a car park  for the Rhododendron labyrinth which we did.  Tom decided he was our guide, to be fair to him, he found the centre without too much bother, then Matt and I guided him back.

We finished the drive and then headed to Rothbury for a little look around.  A lovely market town with an amazing butcher’s.  We had to go in and buy some sausages as they had the best selection I have ever seen.  We got some smoked pork hot dogs and some Northumberland to cook at home.  Then after yet another play in the park for Tom we headed home. 

We had the sausages for tea – WOW!  The smoked sausages were about the best sausages I have ever had – we will be returning to that butcher’s on Friday on our way home to stock up.