Bamburgh Castle wedding map print

People have held this rock for a very long time. A Brittonic fort called Din Guarie stood here, and in 547 Ida of Bernicia took the citadel. The name comes from Bebba, wife of King Æthelfrith, who was given it around 600. In 1464, during the Wars of the Roses, it became the first British castle to fall to gunfire, after a nine month siege.

Lord Crewe acquired it in 1704, by then a ruin, and in 1894 William Armstrong bought it and restored it over the following decade. His family own it still. On the artwork the castle fills its crag beside the sands and the dunes, with the village, its walled garden and the church spread out to the west and south west.

St Aidan's Church carries the name of the saint who built a wooden church outside the castle wall in 635 and died here in 652. In its churchyard lies Grace Darling, who helped rescue survivors of the Forfarshire on 7 September 1838; her memorial was placed so passing ships can see it. Offshore lie the Farne Islands, and Holy Island is about five miles north.