{"id":161,"date":"2017-05-28T01:37:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-28T01:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/?page_id=161"},"modified":"2017-05-28T01:37:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-28T01:37:03","slug":"in-and-around-morpeth","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/?page_id=161","title":{"rendered":"In and Around Morpeth"},"content":{"rendered":"
Monday, May 27, 2013<\/div>\n
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This morning, Dad and I said farewell to Jacquie (who very kindly let us see her horse, Hobbit, before we left), and headed south out of Scotland to Northumbria.\u00a0 My friend, Anna, whom I met while studying in Aberdeen several years ago, lives just outside Newcastle, and we\u2019ll be staying with her for the last few days of our trip.<\/div>\n
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I met Anna while studying at the University of Aberdeen, when I attended the Storytelling Society.\u00a0 She is a practicing storyteller with a special love for folk stories and tales with princesses.\u00a0 You can visit her website at www.uponmyword.co.uk.<\/div>\n
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When we walked through the door of Anna\u2019s home, it was to find ourselves enveloped in the smells of fresh bread and new-baked cookies.\u00a0 Poor Anna had a cold, but was adamant that it wasn\u2019t going to stop her from joining us, so immediately after lunch, we set out to visit Morpeth, a nearby historic town.<\/div>\n
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We visited the tourist centre first, and picked up a map marked with a \u201cpoints of interest walk,\u201d supposed to take an hour, then proceeded to a little shop called Curiously Wicked before starting our walk.\u00a0 Curiously Wicked is a chocolate shop where you can sit and have a cup of tea or coffee served by waiters and waitresses dressed up like Edwardian servants.\u00a0 I think Dad\u2019s comment ran\"\"<\/a> something like, \u201cIt\u2019s like Downton Abby up here!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I had the best cup of Earl Gray tea I\u2019ve ever had, and a delicious apple cupcake.\u00a0 Then, we were off again, down to the Wansbeck River where, for four pounds, Anna and I rented a boat for 30 minutes and went rowing.\u00a0 Anna did most of the work, but I took a turn with the oars and only hit the banks twice!<\/div>\n
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\u00a0The boat safely back at the dock, we walked down to the famous Morpeth stepping stones.\u00a0 It\u2019s said that you haven\u2019t visited Morpeth until you\u2019ve fallen off the stepping stones into the Wansbeck; Dad and I only went to the third or fourth stone, and thankfully didn\u2019t fall in\u2014it was a little chilly!<\/div>\n
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Following our map, we wandered through a beautiful park, caught a glimpse of the ruins of Morpeth Castle (open only one day a year), and visited the public aviary.\u00a0 We past the home of Admiral Collingwood, famous for taking command after Admiral Nelson\u2019s death and, in Morpeth, for planting oak trees to replenish the forests that were destroyed to furnish the English Navy.\u00a0\u00a0 We also visited the Church of St. James the Great, though we could only view the outside, the church having closed for the day.<\/div>\n
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Finally, on our way home, we passed over a footbridge that provides a view back toward a beautiful arched vehicular bridge.\u00a0 In recent years, the Wansbeck flooded so badly that the water touched the top of the 20-foot arches.<\/div>\n
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Tomorrow, we\u2019re off to Lindisfarne to see the priory where The Venerable Bead penned the Ecclesiastical History of Britain in the eighth century.\u00a0 Can\u2019t wait!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, May 27, 2013 This morning, Dad and I said farewell to Jacquie (who very kindly let us see her horse, Hobbit, before we left), and headed south out of Scotland to Northumbria.\u00a0 My friend, Anna, whom I met while … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/161"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/161\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.glmorganwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}