Border Hopping – Etal, Ford and Coldstream
Written by Karen BryanAs I live a few miles from the Anglo/Scottish border, it’s very easy to do cross border trips. This morning we started with a walk along the River Till in Etal in North Northumberland. This is a lovely walk along a fairly level, pretty solid path. The photos shows a small stream which runs into the River Till.
Riverside walk at Etal
Etal Castle dominates the small village of Etal. The castle was a important defence against cross border raids by the Scots using the ford to cross the River Till.
Etal Castle
The village of Ford is a couple of miles from Etal. I thought it was a very picturesque village with a large green. The building on the left in the photo is Lady Waterford Hall which has life size paintings by the Marchioness of Waterford adorning its walls. You can read about the area at the website www.ford-and-etal.co.uk.
Ford
Our next stop was Coldstream in the Scottish Borders. It was so warm and sunny that we decided to buy some food to have a picnic in Henderson Park with the fantastic view over the River Tweed and over to England on the southern riverbank. I can recommend the stovies (a mixture of meat, onion and potato) from JL Bakers in the Main Street.
View from Henderson Park in Coldstream to River Tweed
Ford Castle is also an amazingly well preserved castle which have a fascinating history and interesting stuff between King James (forgot which King James) and Lady Waterford.
It is also fairly close to the Flodden Battlefield which saw 40,000 soilders perished in one of the most bloodiest battle in British history with the Scots toll at an atonishing 30,000.
Yes I did notice Ford Castle, as we visited the garden centre which looks like it is the former walled garden of the Ford Castel, but the entrance to the castle said private as it was some kind of education resource centre.
[...] I had a local day out and wrote about this trip with accompanying photos in a blog post. This post is in alignment with my travel business aims of helping you see more of the real Europe [...]