Attraction in Tyne and Wear

The Alnwick Garden is one of the most ambitious and most innovative garden projects of the early twenty-first century, a new garden created from scratch adjacent to Alnwick Castle in Northumberland from 1997 onward by the Duchess of Northumberland whose combination of the Grand Cascade, the Poison Garden, the Treehouse restaurant, the Labyrinth and the Rose Garden has created a destination attracting several hundred thousand visitors annually and widely credited with transforming the economic fortunes of this section of the Northumberland coast. The Grand Cascade, the central architectural feature of the garden, consists of twenty-one weirs descending a formal axis of considerable scale in a display of moving water that is one of the most impressive formal water features in any garden in Britain. The cascade is activated several times daily and the combination of the sound, movement and visual drama of the water feature creates an immediate and impressive introduction to the garden's ambitions. The Poison Garden is the most unusual and most talked-about section, a walled garden planted exclusively with toxic, narcotic and dangerous plants, from giant hogweed and deadly nightshade through cannabis and coca to the belladonna and henbane of the medieval herbalist tradition. The guided tours of the Poison Garden are among the most popular activities at Alnwick and the combination of horticultural knowledge, danger and dark history creates an experience quite unlike anything available in any other garden in Britain.

Cragside near Rothbury in Northumberland was the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectric power, a remarkable Victorian country house built by the engineer and arms manufacturer William Armstrong from 1863 onward in which the application of the most advanced technology of the age to every aspect of domestic comfort created a house of extraordinary innovation. The National Trust manages Cragside, whose combination of the pioneering technology, the extraordinary Victorian garden landscape of rock garden and exotic planting and the Armstrong collections makes it one of the most interesting and most distinctively characterful National Trust properties in the north of England. Armstrong built Cragside in the wooded gorge of the Debdon Burn, exploiting the natural water resources of the stream system to power the hydraulic and electrical systems that made the house famous. By 1880 the house had electric arc lighting powered by a hydroelectric system on the adjacent lakes, predating any other domestic electrical installation in the world. The range of hydraulic machinery installed at Cragside, from the kitchen spit to the hydraulic passenger lift, created a domestic environment of technological sophistication that astonished visitors in its day. The rock garden, one of the largest Victorian rock gardens in the world covering several hectares of the gorge slope, was planted by Armstrong with rhododendrons, azaleas and other acid-loving plants in a display that at its June peak is one of the most spectacular garden experiences in Northumberland.

Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland is the finest and most completely preserved Roman fort in Britain, a cavalry fort of the second century AD that has been comprehensively excavated to reveal the complete layout of a Roman garrison including the headquarters building, the granaries, the barracks, the hospital and the remarkably complete latrine block in a state of preservation unequalled at any other fort on the Wall. English Heritage manages the fort and the combination of the site quality and the dramatic Wall scenery on the Whin Sill escarpment creates the most complete Roman military heritage experience available in Britain. The fort's layout, clearly legible from the surviving foundations and partial wall remains, provides one of the most instructive plans of a Roman military installation available anywhere in the Empire. The granaries with their underfloor ventilation systems, the headquarters building with its strongroom beneath the floor, the hospital with its wards and operating facilities and the latrine block with its continuous bench seating over a constant water flush create a picture of organised, hygienic and efficiently managed military life that challenges assumptions about Roman civilisation in the British provinces. The Wall section immediately adjacent to Housesteads, including the well-preserved section toward Cuddy's Crags to the east and the dramatic approach from Steel Rigg to the west, provides some of the finest walking on the entire Wall route and the combination of the fort visit with the Wall walking creates one of the most completely satisfying half-day heritage experiences in northern England.

The Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast near Seahouses are one of the most important seabird and grey seal sanctuaries in Britain and one of the most visited wildlife destinations in the country, an archipelago of approximately fifteen to twenty islands depending on the state of the tide that supports enormous numbers of breeding seabirds and one of the largest grey seal colonies in England. The National Trust manages the principal islands and access is by boat from Seahouses harbour, with landings permitted on Inner Farne and Staple Island during the breeding season. The seabird colonies of the Farnes are exceptional by any standard. Puffins are the most iconic species, approximately 100,000 pairs breeding in burrows across the islands, and the birds' complete indifference to human presence allows visitors on the landing islands to observe them at distances of a few feet, a wildlife experience of remarkable intimacy. Arctic terns breeding on the inner islands defend their nests with extraordinary ferocity, diving at visitors' heads with their sharp bills, and the visitor experience of running the tern gauntlet while wearing a hat to ward off the attacks is one of the most memorable and most repeated stories of a Farne Islands visit. The grey seal colony, which pups in autumn and can be observed from the boats throughout the year, numbers approximately six thousand individuals and is one of the most accessible large marine mammal groups in Britain. The seals haul out on the low-lying Brownsman and other islands in large numbers and the boat trips pass close enough for detailed observation. St Cuthbert, the most venerated saint of Northumbria, lived as a hermit on Inner Farne in the seventh century and the remains of a medieval chapel mark the site of his cell.

Vindolanda near Bardon Mill in Northumberland is the most important Roman site in Britain after Hadrian's Wall itself, a pre-Wall and Wall-period Roman fort and civilian settlement whose extraordinary waterlogged archaeology has preserved organic materials including wooden writing tablets whose content provides the most direct and most personal insight into daily life on the Roman frontier available anywhere in the Roman Empire. The Vindolanda Trust manages an active archaeological excavation open to visitors and a museum of international importance. The Vindolanda writing tablets, discovered from 1973 onward in the waterlogged deposits below the fort floor, are thin wooden leaves inscribed in ink with letters, records, orders and lists from the garrison and the civilian community of the late first and early second centuries AD. The tablets include a birthday party invitation from the fort commander's wife to the wife of a neighbouring commander, a list of supplies ordered for the fort kitchen and a letter requesting socks and underpants from home, the humanity of these documents providing an immediacy of connection to the Roman frontier experience quite different from the inscribed stonework that represents most Roman military archaeology. The museum contains the original tablets alongside arms, armour, shoes and other personal belongings preserved by the waterlogging in a collection of extraordinary intimacy and quality. The active excavation, where professional and volunteer archaeologists work within sight of visitors during the season, provides the additional dimension of archaeology as a living process rather than a completed achievement.

Wallington House in the Northumberland countryside near Cambo is one of the most interesting and most intellectually stimulating National Trust houses in northern England, a seventeenth and eighteenth-century house of considerable quality whose interior is remarkable for the Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the Central Hall commissioned by the Trevelyan family and for the connection to some of the most significant intellectual and artistic figures of the Victorian period. The house and its estate provide a combination of architectural quality, art history and the Northumberland landscape of considerable richness. The Central Hall of the house was roofed over in the 1850s and decorated with eight large paintings depicting the history of Northumberland from Roman times to the nineteenth century by William Bell Scott, an artist closely connected with the Pre-Raphaelite circle. The paintings, with their narrative ambition, their historical subject matter and their quality of observation, are among the most important examples of Victorian history painting outside the national collections. Ruskin, Millais, Rossetti and other major figures of the Victorian art world visited Wallington and the house was a significant cultural hub of the northern Pre-Raphaelite circle. The Northumberland walled garden is one of the finest in the National Trust's portfolio, its restored beds and the central ornamental pond providing an excellent horticultural complement to the house interior. The wider estate of farmland, woodland and the valley of the River Wansbeck provides excellent walking in the characteristic Northumberland countryside.