The Best Places To Visit In Northumberland

Last Updated on 18th February 2023

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Northumberland is a place in the UK that I’ve wanted to spend some time in for many years now, but I didn’t think I’d manage to spend 6 days there on two separate visits just three weeks apart! But, that’s exactly what we did last month and our two trips to Northumberland provided us with ample opportunities to explore as much of the area as we could in that time.

We visited numerous castles, ate some truly incredible food and stayed in wonderful, excellently-located accommodations to make the most of our time in the county. I’ve been excited to write this guide about the best things to do in Northumberland ever since we started planning our first trip there and it’s positively jam-packed with my best recommendations of the top sights and attractions in Northumberland, plus all the best places to visit in Northumberland to ensure that you have a truly incredible time!

Just as a little disclaimer: our first trip to Northumberland was entirely arranged by us and we paid for everything ourselves, including the accommodation, food, and activities. Our second trip there, however, was in collaboration with Visit Northumberland who very kindly provided us access to attractions such as The Alnwick Garden, Bamburgh Castle, Warkworth Castle and Dunstanburgh Castle. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get on to the good stuff – the best things to do in Northumberland!

1. Alnwick Castle – best places to visit in Northumberland

Alnwick Castle is arguably the most iconic castle in Northumberland, and one of the most popular castles in the whole of the UK.

While it’s gained even more worldwide popularity thanks to being one of the most highly-coveted filming locations in several Harry Potter films, Alnwick Castle actually has a turbulent history of over 950 years to discover. It’s the second-largest inhabited castle in the UK and its story originally began with the Percy family.

During your time at Alnwick Castle, you’ll get to learn all about its vibrant past, plus you can live out your very own Harry Potter dreams by taking a broomstick lesson on the beautiful lawns of the grounds of the castle.

2. The Alnwick Garden

Pretty much adjacent to Alnwick Castle, you’ll find The Alnwick Garden; a spectacular garden complex that was imagined by the Duchess of Northumberland.

Across 12 impressive acres, you’ll find the world’s largest Tai Haku Cherry Orchard (which we just missed out on due to the late-timing of our visit!), plus the world’s largest treehouse and a Grand Cascade waterfall comprising 120 water jets.

Unfortunately, the weather on the day of our visit to The Alnwick Garden wasn’t the best and it rained intermittently the whole time we were there, but we did manage to get a 5-minute dry spot in which we had permission to fly our drone over the gardens! You can check out the footage of that on my Instagram.

Please note that regular customer flying of drones is not permitted at The Alnwick Garden; we were given special media access to do so.

3. Bamburgh Castle – best places to visit in Northumberland

For as long as Matt and I have been together, he’s always said that Bamburgh Castle is one of his favourite castles in the world, so I was incredibly excited to see it myself to see what all the fuss was about.

On the drive into Bamburgh, you can see the castle perched proudly on top of a hill, overlooking the sea, and it truly is a magical sight to behold.

Bamburgh Castle keep - best places to visit in Northumberland

The Keep - best places to visit in Northumberland

The interior grounds of Bamburgh Castle are just as spectacular as its exterior, plus the lavish stately rooms are included in the price of your entrance ticket, so you should definitely make time to see those to check out ancient armour and weapons, plus the grand reception rooms!

4. Bamburgh Beach

Bamburgh Beach - best places to visit in Northumberland

While the pictures of Bamburgh Beach featured in this post might look heavenly, I can assure you that it was unbelievably cold and ridiculously windy on the day of our visit to the beach.

Bamburgh Beach is nestled right next to the castle and it’s a short, easy walk to the beach from the base of Bamburgh Castle.

5. Walk to Seahouses from Bamburgh

From Bamburgh Beach, you can walk to the next seaside town along called Seahouses. It’s a 3-mile walk from Bamburgh to Seahouses, so you’ll need a spare afternoon to make the most out of this walk, but it’s a lovely thing to do in Northumberland, especially if you’re blessed with good weather!

Seahouses is also a great place to stay in Northumberland as there are numerous caravan and campsites and multiple B&Bs and holiday cottages.

6. Bamburgh village

Bamburgh village itself is also a lovely place to spend some time in while you’re in Northumberland. It’s a beautiful, quaint little village full of adorable holiday cottages, an excellent butchers, a lovely little ice cream shop, a pub and sweet tearooms.

The football field right in front of the castle is also a great place for a wander around and it gives you awesome views of Bamburgh Castle from below.

7. Holy Island – best places to visit in Northumberland

Holy Island sits just off the coast, approximately a 25-minute’ drive from Bamburgh. The island is really quite small and it’s only a 4-minute drive from getting on to the island, to get to the Chare Ends car park which is the best place to park on the island as a visitor.

While we were there, the weather was insanely windy and almost unbearably cold; I said to Matt that I hadn’t been that cold since we were in Iceland 😂. Despite the coldness, Holy Island is such a beautiful place in Northumberland, and while there’s not a tonne of stuff to do there, it’s still worth making the trip over for an hour or two to have a look around.

To get to Holy Island, you need to drive across the Lindisfarne Causeway, but make sure you check the tide times before you go so you don’t get stuck trying to cross!

8. Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island

While you’re on Holy Island, make sure to take a stroll up to Lindisfarne Castle which sits atop a hill overlooking the sea.

Unfortunately, Lindisfarne Castle was still closed due to Covid-19 when we visited, but I believe that it’s now back open to visitors who want to explore the castle complex, as well as its grounds and gardens. If you’re visiting during the colder months (or even just in the temperamental British springtime as we did!), make sure to wrap up warm as it gets stupidly cold and windy on top of that hill!

9. Lindisfarne Priory, Holy Island

Lindisfarne Priory, Holy Island - best places to visit in Northumberland

Also on Holy Island, you’ll find Lindisfarne Priory which was built by monks almost 1400 years ago.

From Lindisfarne Priory, you also get a pretty good view of the island and out to sea, as well as the dramatic features of the ruins themselves.

The ruins of the priory are pretty fascinating to see, even just from the outside, but you can book tickets in advance to go inside the ruins and explore a bit more.

10. Housestead’s Roman Fort, Hadrian’s Wall

On our first trip to Northumberland, we travelled from my parents’ house in Penrith so we decided to take a slight detour and stop off at part of the infamous Hadrian’s Wall. We parked at the ChargeYourCar Charging Station car park and from there, we walked the 15-minute hike across to the Housesteads Roman Fort section of Hadrian’s Wall.

You can pay to go inside the Fort, but we didn’t really have much time as we had to head off to Alnwick Castle as we’d already pre-booked our tickets for that. We did have a little wander up to a section of the wall, however, and had a little nosy over the walls of the Fort.

Housestead's Roman Fort, Hadrian's Wall - best places to visit in Northumberland

Hadrian’s Wall isn’t quite as grand or as impressive as the Great Wall of China for example, but it is pretty cool to see such an important part of British history. The wall dates all the way back to 128 AD and was a former defensive fortification of the Roman province.

11. Barter Books – best places to visit in Northumberland

After visiting Livraria Lello in Porto last year, I was pretty sure that any other bookshop that I ever visited would always seem rather subpar; that is until we visited Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland.

Barter Books Alnwick - best places to visit in Northumberland

Home to more than 350,000 secondhand books, Barter Books is every bookworm’s dream. It’s also set inside Alnwick’s old railway station and throughout the shop, you can see many homages to the original purpose of the building, such as three large murals, plus a miniature railway track that runs around above the bookshelves.

You could easily spend hours getting lost amongst the ancient classics inside Barter Books, or you could soak up more modern works or travel and cookbooks; there really is a section for everyone inside the beautiful bookshop and if you have some spare time while in Alnwick, be sure to pop in for a little look. Just be aware that queues can often wind around the whole of the building; we were lucky that the weather was so bad while we were there, that no one wanted to queue in the rain so we headed straight in!

12. Dunstanburgh Castle – best places to visit in Northumberland

Dunstanburgh Castle was the last castle we visited on our second trip to Northumberland and it’s certainly one that we won’t be forgetting anytime soon for several reasons!

To get to Dunstanburgh Castle, you’ll have to park in Craster and walk the 1.3-mile walk along the coast to reach the impressive 14th-century fortification complex. The approach to Dunstanburgh Castle is a memorable experience in itself, with rugged coastline views to your right, and often numerous types of farmland animals and livestock to your left.

Dunstanburgh sea views - best places to visit in Northumberland

To go inside Dunstanburgh Castle, you’ll have to pre-book tickets, and while you can just walk up to the castle itself and see it from the outside, it is worth paying to go in so that you can walk around the perimeter of the interior castle grounds. You’ll be treated to dramatic sea views from the castle complex, plus an abundance of remarkable wildlife, but just be aware of the seabirds; one pooed on my chin while we were walking which makes for a funny story now, but it didn’t seem that funny at the time! 😂

Just to note – the walk to Dunstanburgh Castle isn’t very accessible for wheelchairs or pushchairs as it’s across muddy fields and uneven coastline.

13. Walk to Embleton Bay from Dunstanburgh Castle

From the clifftops at Dunstanburgh Castle, you can see Embleton Bay out to the distance you can actually walk to from the castle’s base. It’s approximately a 20-minute walk from the castle to Embleton Bay and you’ll enjoy beautiful sea views as you walk.

If you’re travelling there with kids, just be wary that it’s not the easiest or most accessible walk, but it is certainly very beautiful, even if you just enjoy the views out to Embleton Bay from the top of the castle.

14. Warkworth Castle

When I was researching the best things to do in Northumberland before we even went there, I came across pictures of Warkworth Castle and it didn’t really strike me as being an overly impressive place to visit, but as soon as we stepped foot into the grounds of the castle, I was more than impressed.

The view of the keep and surrounding ruins from the entrance tower (pictured above) is so beautiful and it’s hard to imagine that it’s over 600 years old!

If you’re interested in learning much more about the history of Warkworth Castle during your time there, you can take advantage of the free self-guided audio tour which enables you to learn about different parts of the castle at your own leisurely pace.

15. Explore Craster village

The village of Craster is where you’ll park if you’re planning to visit Dunstanburgh Castle (the only way to get to the castle is to walk there as it’s set right on the coast, so the best place to park is Craster) and if you’ve got a spare half an hour or so, you might want to have a little wander around the village.

There isn’t loads to do in Craster, but it is a cute and quaint little seaside village with numerous adorable eateries such as The Jolly Fisherman pub and Shoreline Cafe (more on those in my food guide to Northumberland).

The one thing that slightly irked me about Craster however, is that the parking situation is a bit of a faff if you haven’t got any coins to pay for parking in cash. You’ll have to park at the Craster Quarry Car Park which is only about a 7-minute walk to the harbour. However, if you don’t have any coins, you can pay by phone but there’s also no signal at the car park, so you’ll have to walk back to the entrance of the car park and make sure you’re within 30ft of the Tourist Information Centre to pick up the Wi-Fi signal. It’s not exactly annoying enough to make you not want to go, but just be aware of this faff if you’re heading to Craster without any coins!

Where to stay in Northumberland

During our two trips to Northumberland, we stayed in two different places each time. The first time we went to Northumberland we stayed in the beautiful Doxford Barns Farmhouse Lodge and the second time we stayed at Farne Lodge in Beadnell.

Both places were lovely and I’d recommend either of them if you’re looking for a great place to stay in Northumberland.

Find somewhere to stay in Northumberland!

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Doxford Barns Farmhouse Lodge

Doxford Barns Farmhouse Lodge is a beautiful and very romantic place to stay in Northumberland. The property is also famed for its stunning weddings and there are ample other accommodation types for guests to enjoy during a stay in Northumberland.

Check out my full review of Doxford Barns Farmhouse Lodge here!

Farne Lodge, Beadnell

Farne Lodge was the place that we stayed at on our second trip up to Northumberland and to say that it was a very last minute booking after our original plans to camp fell through, I was more than happy with it!

I’m so glad that we managed to fit so much into our two trips to Northumberland, and while ideally you’d normally try and fit everything into one trip, I think it gave us the chance to really appreciate everything and do all the things we wanted to.

A huge thanks to Visit Northumberland for sorting us out with press tickets to a few of the attractions above, I had so much fun working with them and there’s going to be plenty more Northumberland content coming your way very soon!

Check out my full review of Farne Lodge here!

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