Warkworth & Alnwick Castles

Warkworth & Alnwick Castles - 06 Aug 2005

This was part of a trip to Edinburgh. On the way up, we saw a couple
of castles.

The main goal was to get to Alnwick Castle, which is where the
exterior shots for the first two Harry Potter movies were filmed.
However, on the way we saw Warkworth Castle right by the side
of the road.

Warkworth was very cool to walk through. These pictures don't really
do it justice. It had a pretty good audio tour that led you through the
whole complex. The castle is on a little peninsula just up a river from
the coast. There is also a hermitage on the site, but we had to
move on so we could see Alnwick before it closed (everything closes
around 5pm, regardless of day or season).

Inner Keep

Remaining lions

Very close to
the sea

Lots of wind

View of the town
from the castle

Dry moat, can be
filled during attack

Alnwick (pronounced on-ick) Castle is just a few miles down the
road. It was a much more touristy location than Warkworth. It is
essentially a complete castle since there are still people living there.
The same family has owned it for hundreds of years.

They let you go a tour of one of the inner buildings, so you can
see how the rich folks live. This really is a lived-in castle, since the
family has their personal stuff scattered throughout the fancy
museum-like rooms (e.g. a plasma TV stuck in the corner, and a
Simpsons chess set on top of a priceless antique table, crappy
fridge-art by the kids set up next to oil paintings, ;) )

It was good to see one of these castles that still had a roof! This
castle also is supposed to have some great gardens, but we didn't
have time to see them before it closed. Next summer perhaps...