• Home
  • Drawings
    • Twickenham, Eel Pie Island & Richmond
    • The Ridgeway
    • Northumberland
    • Life drawing
    • Other figure drawing
    • Sculpture and monuments
    • People and pubs
    • Lake District drawings
    • Miscellaneous
  • Book illustration
    • How it started
    • Wise Blood
    • The Old Man and the Sea
    • The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
    • The Siege of Troy
    • Brighton Rock
    • Beasley Street
  • A Fellwalker's Notes
    • About the book
    • Buying the book
    • Green Path Publishing
  • Contact

Northumberland

​In May 2022 I spent a week travelling and drawing in Northumberland. These are the pictures I drew. With the exception of the chalk drawings of medieval sculptures in Hexham Abbey, they are all drawn with brown ink, dip pen and brush, on A3 paper.

Picture
Prudhoe Castle, in the Tyne Valley. A ruin now, it dates from Norman times.

Picture
The old bridge at Corbridge, built in 1674. It's only one vehicle (+pedestrians) wide.
Corbridge was once the most northerly town in the Roman Empire.

Picture
Strange Medieval sculptures in Hexham Abbey. The abbey somehow survived the reformation, but these sculptures must already been old at the time.
I drew them using black chalk.
Picture
More sculptures from Hexham Abbey. Their names come from the Abbey's guide notes. 'Fox preaching to geese'?

Picture
The Moot Hall, in Hexham. It dates from the 14th or 15th century.

Picture
Tynemouth Castle, seen from Collingwood's monument to the south.

Picture
Another view of Tynemouth Castle, and the priory, seen from the north side, over King Edward's Bay.

Picture
St Mary's Lighthouse, in Whitley Bay. It was sunny, but with a cold gale blowing.

Picture
Alnwick Castle, seen from 'the pastures', just above the river Aln.

Picture
The gates to Alnwick Castle. Those stone sculptures of soldiers on the battlements used to fascinate me as child, but I was never convinced by my parents' explanation that they were to scare off Scottish raiders.

Warkworth Castle. Possibly the most romantic, on a conical hill overlooking the village, with one side sloping down through woods to the River Coquet.
Picture
Picture

Picture
Dunstanburgh Castle. This was built by Earl Thomas of Lancaster, who then led a revolt against Edward II, was defeated in battle, captured and executed. So, he didn't enjoy his new castle for long.

Picture
A closer view of the gates to Dunstanburgh Castle. It's unusual in that it's in a lonely place on a headland above the sea, not near a town or village.

Bamburgh Castle. Undoubtedly the most spectacular of the Northumbrian castles, it's a huge, complex fortress high up on a rocky promontory. There's been a fortress here for 1400 years. The current building has a Norman keep, but much of it was rebuilt in an imagined Arthurian style by the great 19th century industrialist, Lord Armstrong.
Picture
Picture

Picture
Lindisfarne Priory, on Lindisfarne, or Holy Island. It was really hard to draw, with so many interacting shapes, and the cragginess of the broken stonework. 

Two views of Lindisfarne Castle, also on the island. I drew the first one while sitting behind a stone wall among the sheep droppings, sheltering from a gale and slanting rain.  The rain had eased off by the time I attempted the second one, but the wind hadn't and so, with no shelter, this one was drawn hastily in under ten minutes.
Picture
Picture

Picture
Edlingham Castle. This is on the wild and spectacular road from Alnwick to Rothbury. It was a fortified manor, but abandoned in the mid 17th century. Like so many others, it was then used as a source of stone for new buildings.
Maybe that accounts for the leaning tower.
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Drawings
    • Twickenham, Eel Pie Island & Richmond
    • The Ridgeway
    • Northumberland
    • Life drawing
    • Other figure drawing
    • Sculpture and monuments
    • People and pubs
    • Lake District drawings
    • Miscellaneous
  • Book illustration
    • How it started
    • Wise Blood
    • The Old Man and the Sea
    • The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
    • The Siege of Troy
    • Brighton Rock
    • Beasley Street
  • A Fellwalker's Notes
    • About the book
    • Buying the book
    • Green Path Publishing
  • Contact