Skulferatu #153 - Berwick Castle, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland

In the mood for a wander around a ruin, I took a trip down to Berwick upon Tweed to visit the castle there.  Unlike many castles I’ve been to before, the ruins of this one are pretty easy to find as the train station is right in the middle of them.  Not that you’d really notice, as the ruined wall on the far side is the only real hint of the once grand structure that stood there.  Most people would never realise that they are passing through the great hall of a castle where some major events in the history of Scotland and England took place.  While they are sitting there waiting for their train to pull out of the station, various ghosts from the past are wandering around them, kings, noblemen and lowly peasants strutting and flitting around much like the pigeons on the station platform who bob and flap by.

 

 

Castle ruins at Berwick upon Tweed Railway Station

 

Berwick Castle was built for King David I of Scotland in the 1120s to protect the important harbour town of Berwick upon Tweed from English forces.  The castle was then used by Malcolm IV to imprison those who had fallen foul of him.  In 1175 the castle and the town were surrendered to King Henry II of England as part of a ransom after the capture of the Scottish King, William the Lion, at Alnwick Castle.  A little while later, 1189 to be exact, the castle and town were sold back to the Scots by King Richard I so that he could fund the Third Crusade.  It all stayed in Scots hands for a quite a few years, despite being ransacked in 1216 by King John I of England who had much of the population of the town tortured until they handed over their valuables to him and his men.

 

 

Berwick upon Tweed Castle by James Newton, 1790

 

 

Chateau De Berwick by Francois Alexandre Pernod, 1830

 

In 1292 King Edward I was asked to arbitrate on who should succeed to the Scottish throne following the death of the only remaining heir to Alexander III.  At the great hall in Berwick Castle, he announced that he had decided in favour of John Balliol rather than Robert the Bruce.  Edward and Balliol soon fell out though and this led in 1296 to Edward and his army capturing the castle and the town.  Edward ordered that the Scottish garrison stationed at the castle and the inhabitants of Berwick were to be slaughtered as a warning to those who rebelled against him.  It is recorded that – ‘When the town had been taken…and its citizens had submitted, Edward spared no one, whatever the age or sex, and for two days streams of blood flowed from the bodies of the slain, for in his tyrannous rage he ordered 7,500 souls of both sexes to be massacred...So that mills could be turned by the flow of their blood.’

 

 

Ruins of the tower at the White Wall, Berwick Castle

 

 

Ruins of the tower at the White Wall, Berwick Castle

 

 

Passageway through the tower

 

 

The White Wall of Berwick Castle

 

 

Castle tower by the Royal Border Bridge

 

In 1306, the Countess of Buchan, who was a close ally to Robert the Bruce and had taken part in his coronation, was captured by the English and held at Berwick Castle.  There King Edward ordered that she be ‘closely confined in an abode of stone and iron made in the shape of a cross, and let her be hung up out of doors in the open air of Berwick, that both in life and after her death, she may be a spectacle and eternal reproach to travellers.’  For four years she was imprisoned in this way before being released to the Carmelite Friars at Berwick.

 

 

LNER poster by Doris Zinkeisen - 1930

 

In 1318 the castle and town were recaptured for the Scots by Robert the Bruce and were held for a few years before falling again to the English.  And so, it went on and on until finally in 1482 they were taken for the final time by Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III) for the English King, Henry VI.

 

 

The ruins of Berwick Castle

 

 

The ruins of Berwick Castle

 

 

Ruins of the Barmekin Tower at Berwick Castle

 

 

Ruins of the Barmekin Tower at Berwick Castle

 

 

Stone walls in the sunshine

 

 

A window in the walls

 

 

The jagged remains of Berwick Castle

 

Under Queen Elisabeth I, ramparts were built around the town of Berwick, and the castle became somewhat redundant.  It quickly fell into disrepair and in 1603 after the Union of Crowns when King James VI of Scotland also became King of England, the castle was sold to the Earl of Dunbar.  He demolished part of it to make way for a grand house for himself, but he died before the project could be completed.  A lot of the stone from the castle was then taken and reused in the construction of various other buildings. 

 

In 1847 the great hall of the castle was demolished to make way for the railway station that now stands there, and all that remains now are a few walls and ruined towers.

 

After taking a wander round and through the ruins of the castle, I left a Skulferatu in a gap in the stones of the White Wall.

 

 

Skulferatu #153

 

 

View along the white wall to the tower

 

 

Skulferatu #153 in a gap in the White Wall

 

 

Skulferatu #153 in a gap in the White Wall

 

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #153

 

The coordinates for the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.773434

Longitude -2.013114

 

what3words: power.stocks.gent

 

I used the following sources for information on Berwick Castle -

 

The Antiquities of Scotland

Francis Grose

1797

 

English Heritage – Berwick upon Tweed Castle and Ramparts

 

 

Skulferatu #152 - Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, Crystal palace Park, Bromley, London

 

On a chilly February morning, while down in London, I thought I might go and visit some old friends I hadn’t seen for a while.  A bunch of old dinosaurs I’d last bumped into a least a decade ago.  Now, I’m not being insulting with my old dinosaur remark, as these friends are a bunch of Victorian models of dinosaurs.  Models of what Victorian scientists thought dinosaurs looked like based on the knowledge that they had at that time, so not particularly accurate.  Certainly not like the dinosaurs we would recognise today, but rather just a group of monstrous lizards and fishy like things. 

 

Arriving at Crystal Palace Station, I walked up the rather wide, grand stairs that lead up and out of the building and to the entrance of the park.  Then walking up and around a rather muddy path, slippery and slidey from all the February rain, I made my way to the ponds where the dinosaurs live.  And there they were in all their faded glory.

 

 

Hylaeosaurus head at entrance to dinosaur trail

 

 

The island of dinosaurs

 

Unfortunately, time hasn’t been kind to the dinosaurs, but then they have been strutting around their island or sitting in the surrounding waters for over a hundred and fifty years.  They were built between 1854 and 1855 to accompany the relocation of the Crystal Palace building from Hyde Park, where it had stood for the Great Exhibition of 1851, to a new park at Sydenham Hill.  The sculptor who was tasked with creating them was Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, while the landscape, or ‘Geological Court’ in which they would sit, was designed by Joseph Paxton.

 

 

Plesiosaurs & a Ichthyosaur

 

 

A Plesiosaur

 

 

A Plesiosaur & a couple of Teleosaurus

 

 

An Ichthyosaur

 

The dinosaurs at Crystal Palace represent an early interpretation of extinct life and were the first attempt to create full-size three-dimensional models of these creatures.  They were based on interpretations of fossils and bones that Waterhouse Hawkins had examined, though he also consulted several experts in palaeontology at that time, including Richard Owen.  Together they worked out what the animals should look like, though if no agreement could be reached, Waterhouse Hawkins did the best he could with what little information he had. 

 

 

Illustration showing some of the dinosaur models

in the workshop at Crystal Palace Park

 

Altogether Waterhouse Hawkins made thirty-seven models of dinosaurs and other extinct animals.  He would have carried on making many more if financial constraints had not put a stop to the project.

 

On completion, the models were quite a hit with the public, who could access the island they were on and marvel at the size of these monstrous beasts. 

 

 

A cartoon of the dinosaurs – Punch, 1855

 

As scientific knowledge on dinosaurs increased, the models at Crystal Palace became seen as something of an embarrassment given their inaccuracies.  They are now, however, seen as important objects in the history of science that represent the Victorian understanding of the prehistoric world.  In 2007 they were classed as Grade I listed buildings and restoration work is ongoing to preserve them.

 

 

A Megalosaurus

 

 

Head of the Megalosaurus

 

 

A couple of Iguanodon

 

 

A hungry Iguanodon

 

 

Iguanodon head

 

 

A hungry Iguanodon peeking through the trees

 

 

A Mosasaurus in the lake

 

 

A Mosasaurus

 

Wandering along the pathways around the lake surrounding the dinosaur island, I passed numerous families and groups of tourists who had come to see these fabulous old creatures.  Most seemed to love them, posing for photos with a dinosaur or two standing behind them, though one small child did pass me howling in disappointment – ‘…but they’re not alive.  I wanted to see real ones.’  Sorry mate, I thought, but you’re quite a few hundred million years too late for that.

 

After a good wander around, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me resting on the eyelid of the Hylaeosaurus head sitting at the start of the dinosaur trail.

 

 

Skulferatu #152

 

 

Skulferatu #152 on the eyelid of a Hylaeosaurus

 

 

Skulferatu #152 on the eyelid of a Hylaeosaurus

 

 

Skulferatu #152 on the eyelid of a Hylaeosaurus

 

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #152

 

The coordinates for the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 51.417273

Longitude -0.068557

 

what3words: mixed.smug.skirt

 

I used the following sources for information on the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs –

 

Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

 

Historic England - Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

 

The Art and Science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Mark P Witton & Ellinor Mitchell

2022

 

 

Skulferatu #151 - Southern Lower Promenade, Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear

I am of an age where I can remember the fading glory of seaside towns.  The children’s parks and paddling pools, the outdoor swimming pools and the dodgy amusement arcades.  As a kid in the seventies, my family spent some holidays near and around these towns.  Holidays in rented caravans in parks near the sea where it seemed to rain for much of the time.  No wonder everyone else was buggering off on cheap holidays to Spain.  Though, like most kids, we didn’t care.  We paddled in the slightly scummy water in concrete paddling pools near the beach and we built sandcastles in the rain.  Went for picnics in the howling wind and ate our sand blasted egg sandwiches.  Washing away the grit in our mouths with bottles of lemonade – carefully wiping away the damp sand from around the top first before taking a swig of lukewarm fizziness.  We loved it. 

 

 

Postcard showing the Lower Promenade in its heyday

 

While wandering around Whitley Bay I came across the remnants of one of these faded glories down on the lower promenade.  There I stumbled over the remains of the children’s paddling pool.  Blue edged concrete with a faded aqua blue pool and a puddle of stagnant water sitting in the middle.  Oh, how it brought back memories of those holidays from long ago.  Traipsing around I found that much of the promenade had been covered with a layer of tarmac.  This was now disintegrating to reveal the old slabs laid in patterns that would have once given a jolly holiday feeling to the place.

 

 

A view over the Lower Promenade

 

 

The paddling pool

 

The Southern Lower Promenade was once a popular spot.  Built in 1926 along with the sea wall, it had, as well as the paddling pool, crazy golf, a sand pit and lots of stalls selling various things.  Part of the promenade was also transformed into gardens with grassed area, paths, staircases and seating.  It remained popular up until the 1980s when it was closed by the council, who deeming it unhygienic, covered a lot of it up in the crumbling tarmac that still defaces it today.

 

 

Old slabs revealed

 

 

Concrete and blue

 

 

The paddling pool

 

 

A view over the Southern Promenade

 

Though now rather an ugly, disfigured spot it seemed popular enough as I walked around, though mainly with people coming to stand by the railings of the sea wall and dodge the huge spraying waves.  I took a turn at this game as well until looking out at one wave coming in, I got soaked by the spray of another that had sneaked up upon me.  So, deciding to cut my losses I cut back along the cliffs sloping down to the promenade and there I left a Skulferatu in a gap in the rocks there.

 

 

Skulferatu #151

 

 

Skulferatu #151 in a gap in the rocks

 

 

Skulferatu #151 in a gap in the rocks

 

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #151

 

The coordinates for the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.042111

Longitude -1.436511

 

what3words: organs.magma.books

 

I used the following sources for information on the Southern Lower Promenade –

 

Rockliffe Remembers – Southern Lower Promenade