I have always loved the Northumberland coast from the firs morning after we moved to a house in Warkworth, about thirty five miles to the North of Newcastle upon Tyne. There was an open view of the sea dunes about a mile away and the tidal estuary of the River Coquet ran in the foreground, flowing into the sea at the coastal town of Amble where the fishing boats and colliery barges used to moor in the harbour.
The Coquet is salmon fishing river which defends the Medieval Warkworth village an three sides in a horseshoe bend with the motte and bailey castle guarding the dry land in the neck of dry land on the fourth. The castle is largely a ruin, but the Duke of Northumberland maintains some private apartments with some period furnishings in one of the towers.
I have vivid memories of an early morning, solitary Summer walk to the beach on the morning after we moved in. I casually scavenged on the beach and retrieved some glass fishing floats and other flotsam which lay around the house for much of the five years or so that we lived there. Walks along the banks of the Coquet, past the site of the cave medieval hermitage and on to Morwick Mill (where there were ancient spiral rock carvings marking the remains some prehistoric settlement) were favourite walking routes for me. Quiet country roads made pleasant routes for cycling and I spent a lot of my stay there outdoors