 |
| April 1, 2023--Berwick's Elizabethan Walls |
Typically, they aim for the region's premier draw--the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, a tidal island lying about 13 miles south of Berwick on the North Sea coast. A tidal island is part of the attraction.
We too have explored tidal islands on earlier trips: Davaar Island on Good Friday 2019 [https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2019/06/ficklness.html]; the Holms of Ire Easter 2022 [https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2022/10/solvitur-ambulando-it-is-solved-by.html]; Brough of Birsay off Orkney Easter 2022. So yes, we are familiar with the allure of tidal islands.
 |
| April 1, 2023--Gun emplacements Berwick Walls |
Dismissing Berwick as a destination in its own right is misguided. For one thing, Lindisfarne is by any measure exceedingly over crowded. Its 1000 acres (+/- 1.5 square miles at high tide) is crammed by over 650,000 visitors each year. As for crowd behavior, it's nearly frenetic because day trippers only have about two hours on each side of low tide to crush onto the tidal island, check their boxes off and hustle back across the causeway to the mainland before the tide stands them. The tide table is a crowd multiplier. It concentrates Lindisfarne's average 2000 daily visitors into roughly four or five hours around low tide. Those who elect to stay overnight, probably have a better go at visiting Lindisfarne less harried at high tide. But accommodations, restaurants and pubs on Lindisfarne usually book full.
 |
| April 1, 2023--Berwick like Newcastle a city of bridges |
 |
| April 1, 2023--path along Elizabethan walls and forts, Berwick |
Berwick Museum and Art Gallery's season opening day happened to be April 1, 2023, the same day we walked our circuits of Berwick's mighty Elizabethan walls. Berwick Museum is housed in the Clock Block at Berwick Barracks. These barracks (often referred to as Ravensdowne Barracks after the street end where it is located) are incorporated into the city's defensive works. Our first foray to the barracks was along the walls path above and east of it. The barracks has no access facing the path.
 |
| April 1, 2023--Berwick Barracks from the Elizabethan Walls path |
Later that morning, our second foray to the barracks was more
purposeful. We aimed for the museum, walking from Woolmarket up
Ravensdowne to its tee intersection at Holy Trinity Church (Anglican)
and Parade road. The museum entrance is just east of the intersection,
through a wrought iron gate emblazoned by "The King's Own Scottish Borderers"
coat of arms. The royal regiment being stationed at Berwick from 1881
through the 1960s, after which the barracks were turned over for civic
use...like the museum.
 |
| April 1, 2023--gate to Berwick Barracks |
The barracks alone are worth the visit but two museums are contained in them--a military museum of the Scottish Borderers and the Berwick Museum and Art Gallery. Berwick Barracks was the first purpose built barracks in Britain since Roman times. Designed by the famous architect Nicholas Hawksmoor (c. 1661-1736), construction began in 1717 in response to Jacobite risings. The barracks were completed in 1721.
Hawksmoor, a protégé of architect Sir Christopher Wren, would go on to be a leading English architect. Considered England's finest Baroque architect, among the prolific Hawksmoor's designs are: the towers of Westminster, All Soul's College in Oxford, Blenheim Castle, Old Royal Naval College, and a number of landmark churches like Christ Church Spitalfields in London.
Hawksmoor's church building began under Queen Anne in 1711, when the "Act for the building of fifty new churches" was enacted. The alleged raison d'être of this Act was to serve London's burgeoning population growth--or rather the Anglican ones. Conveniently, it also served to check increasing numbers of Catholics as well as Dissenters (Nonconformists opposed to state interference in religion). 
April 1, 2023--Berwick from a gun revetment
The 50 church building program was to be funded by a duty on coal imported into London. Parliament already successfully levied a coal tax in 1670 for rebuilding St. Paul's Cathedral and the churches destroyed in the Great London Fire (September 1666). But by 1718, the new 50 church coal levy was siphoned into general government revenues...a practice with which we are also unfortunately familiar.
Without the set aside, interest waned especially as construction costs rose. The project was pulled. Of the 50 churches authorized, only 12 would end up being built. Today, these are known as "Queen Anne Churches". Of these, Hawksmoor designed and built six. And he worked with John James, another architect, on the design of two more. The "Queen Anne" churches are considered Hawksmoor's finest works.
April 1, 2023--swans on River Tweed at Berwick
Hawksmoor's architectural genius for "manipulating volume and mass" suffered under reputational attacks. His moniker is either "Architect of Faith" or it's "Devil's Architect" depending upon how much one's views are shaped by propaganda. Hawksmoor was fascinated with mythology, the mysteries of Egypt, and something called "sacred geometry". This led to phantasmagoric claims by his detractors, such as the geographic locations of his churches supposedly align somehow in an occult message. Bermuda Triangle and all that.
We too are familiar with this sort of thing today. Rumors of such and such (usually without evidence) leads 100% to this or that conspiracy. In any case, Berwick Barracks was well worth visiting. The crowd must have been elsewhere, as we had the place almost to ourselves. When we walked up to its gate, a staffer was just setting out a sandwich board noting they were open for the season. And so it began.
No comments:
Post a Comment