Saturday 11/5/19

Barnard Castle in the town of the same name is about 10 minutes drive from Newsham the village we are staying in for a few days.

Barnard also has the Bowes Museum which we visited twice, Thursday 9/5 and again on Saturday.

Barnard Castle was founded in the 12th century and provides gorgeous views of the Tees Gorge; which remarkably is the colour of Tea, and I found out later that it’s coloured this way due to the peat that grows in this area.

The ruined mediaeval castle is also on the fringe of the busy market town, affectionately known as Barney’s so is easy to access.

Bowes Museum was a big surprise. It is a private museum created by Josephine and John Bowes. It captured my imagination as Josephine could not have children and she and her husband, both avid lovers of the Arts, set about collecting some 15,000 works including paintings, textiles, ceramics and local historical items in just over a decade with artistic work from El Greco and Francis Goya.

A big attraction is the Silver Swan automaton which was favoured by the Queen Mother who was also a patron.

The museum has three floors and your pass is annual so you can revisit. I fell in love with the romance of the Bowes couple I must say, obviously devoted to each other and their life’s work. I read that John Bowes stopped looking for Art for the Museum shortly after Josephine died so he was obviously grief stricken. Very interesting historical family story too with close ties to the royal family.

We missed the Silver Swan on our visit so we returned on Saturday to see it and Also the the 1st floor that we missed on our first visit.

After the museum Rob wanted a haircut so we visited a traditional Turkish barber we had seen earlier. Rob got a great haircut and also had his ears “flamed” and the inside of his nose waxed! Ouch!

We then did a walk from Barnard to the Egglestone Abbey. Along the way we chatted with a two people walking there dogs, Candess and her dad Nigel and their dogs. Great walk with friendly conversation. Candess also helped me identify some of the flowers we saw and the dad gave us directions to a great local ale house – Firkin Ale. They also ended up walking all the way to the Abbey with us and then all the way back to town to the bar!

Everyone has been so friendly, it has been really lovely. Mind you I have been careful to say G’day as much as possible which immediately identifies you as an Aussie. 😀😀😀