Northumberland Coach Holidays and Escorted Tours
Northumberland has more castles than any other English county and fewer people per square mile than almost anywhere in England. That combination is the point. You can stand on the beach below Bamburgh in July and have most of the sand to yourself, then drive twenty minutes inland and find a Roman fort on a ridge with nothing but sheep between you and Scotland.
Our tours here are short coach holidays based in one hotel, with a driver throughout, so the causeway tides, the boat times and the long single-track approaches are somebody else's problem.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Northumberland Tours
Holy Island is planned around the published safe crossing times for the causeway, which are set by the tides, so the visit may fall earlier or later in the day than you expect. Farne Islands boat trips run subject to weather and sea conditions, and skippers occasionally cruise the islands rather than land on them. If a sailing is cancelled, your driver will arrange an alternative for the afternoon. Ask us about a specific departure.
More than on a purely coastal tour, if you choose the Roman itinerary. Housesteads sits a good uphill walk from its car park, and the ground at both Housesteads and Vindolanda is grass, gravel and uneven stone. Alnwick Garden and Durham involve slopes and cobbles. Nothing is compulsory and there is always somewhere to sit and wait, but do tell us before booking what you can comfortably manage.
Our Northumberland tours each include a number of single rooms with no supplement — six on the coastal and Roman itineraries, ten on the Kingdom of Northumbria. They go to the earliest bookings, so it is worth asking early. Once those rooms are taken, a supplement applies to further singles. Ask us what is currently available on the departure you are considering.
The coast, the castles and the islands
The Northumberland coast runs about forty miles from Amble to Berwick, and the great sights sit along it in a row. Bamburgh Castle stands on a basalt outcrop directly above the beach, which is the best approach to it — the walk along the sand gives you the whole silhouette at once. Alnwick Castle is still lived in by the Percy family, and next door the Alnwick Garden has the Grand Cascade and the walled Poison Garden, which is seen by timed guided tour only.
Holy Island is reached by a causeway that floods twice a day, so visits are built around published safe crossing times. The Farne Islands, a couple of miles offshore from Seahouses, hold puffins, guillemots and a large colony of Atlantic grey seals; landings depend on the swell, and boats do sometimes cruise the islands instead of landing.
Hadrian's Wall and Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Inland, the wall runs along the crags of the Whin Sill, and the central stretch is the one worth the effort. Housesteads is the most complete Roman fort in Britain, with its barracks, hospital and famous latrines laid out on an exposed south-facing slope. Vindolanda, a few miles west, is still being excavated each summer; its writing tablets — soldiers' letters, kit lists, an invitation to a birthday party — are the closest thing we have to Roman voices. The Sill visitor centre nearby explains how the geology shaped all of it.
Then there is the older Christian story. Northumbria produced Cuthbert, Wilfrid and Bede, and our Kingdom of Northumbria itinerary pairs Holy Island with a walking tour of Durham, where Cuthbert and Bede are both buried in the cathedral.
