We really like Cragside.
Tom has already taken you there once, of course. That was his moody, solitary-man-with-a-dog version: rain coming through the trees, Meg beside him, not another soul in sight and probably some unnecessarily dramatic photograph of water dripping from a branch.
Needless to say, I wanted no part in that.
This time we wanted to go back and show you the other Cragside. Cragside as a family day out.
I’d actually suggested we save it until Christmas because Cragside has a rather impressive festive claim to fame. Last year its giant redwood officially became the World’s Tallest Bedded Christmas Tree, earning a Guinness World Records title. It stands 44.7 metres tall and is dressed in more than 1,300 lights. And yes, it’s doing it again this Christmas.
But Saturday was simply too lovely to waste.
The Last Little Embers of Summer
It was one of those glorious early autumn Northumberland days. Fluffy white clouds, a ridiculously deep blue sky and just enough breeze to remind you that summer is packing its bags.
But no coats yet.
That feels important somehow.
We arrived determined to enjoy those last little embers of summer while they were still hanging around.
There are miles of walks at Cragside where you can disappear into the estate and quite easily feel as though you have the place to yourself. Tom always starts quoting the Pareto Principle when we come here — apparently 80% of people will be in 20% of the park.
Normally that means we spend our day avoiding the 20%.
Not today. I was in charge.
And this time we were going exactly where everybody else goes.
Coffee First. Obviously.
Our first stop was the visitor centre.
If you’ve skipped breakfast, you can grab a coffee and a bacon and egg roll here before setting off. The courtyard can be lovely when the morning sun reaches it, although with the sun sitting a little lower in the sky now, we decided not to linger.
There are toilets and baby-changing facilities here too, which suddenly become rather more important considerations when Flynn is joining the expedition.
Then we headed out onto Carriage Drive.
Our destination was the adventure play area. You can drive there, but with Meg along we always feel slightly guilty driving when there are perfectly good legs available.
Cragside’s Carriage Drive makes a six-mile circuit around the estate, connecting various walks, viewpoints and car parks. It’s one of the things that makes such a huge place surprisingly easy to explore.
It’s particularly useful if you have children on bikes or a pram, although remember that cars use it too and keep everyone safely tucked in when one comes along.
We actually enjoy walking it.
There are stretches where the trees suddenly open and you get these wonderful glimpses across the estate — exactly the sort of scenery you miss when you’re concentrating on finding the next parking space.
The Important Bit: Playground and Cake
Around the middle of our outing came Flynn’s contribution to the itinerary: the adventure play area.
It’s a brilliant place to let little people run around, climb, swing and generally burn off enough energy to justify feeding them again.
It always feels very relaxed too. There are other mums and dads doing exactly the same thing, children finding temporary best friends and adults having those little conversations that begin with “How old is yours?”
There’s also a kiosk selling coffee and snacks at prices that don’t completely destroy the weekend budget.
Tom has developed a particular weakness for the Blueberry Bakewell slice with two scoops of salted caramel ice cream.
I know.
Two scoops.
I secretly bought another couple of slices to bring home.
He doesn’t know yet, but if he completes the blue jobs I’ve asked him to do, we might enjoy them tonight.
Marriage is basically a reward-based training programme.
Tom Adds “Something Interesting”
From the play area we headed back towards the house.
There was, naturally, a perfectly sensible way of doing this.
So Tom found another one.
He always likes to throw a little curveball into our walks to “keep things interesting”, which sounds perfectly reasonable until you find yourself traversing a rocky crag carrying bags, managing a dog and with a one-year-old strapped to your front.
Apparently this was more interesting.
That’s two Blueberry Bakewell slices for me tonight, Tom.
The House on the Crag
Eventually Cragside House appeared through the trees.
At the moment, restoration work means scaffolding inevitably detracts a little from that wonderful first view. But it’s worth looking beyond it, because the house itself is extraordinary.
Cragside was the home of Victorian engineer and industrialist William Armstrong and his wife Margaret. What began as a comparatively modest house in the 1860s grew into something resembling a Victorian vision of the future.
And that isn’t really an exaggeration.
Cragside became the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectricity. Armstrong used the estate’s lakes and water systems not simply to create a beautiful landscape, but to power his home. Inside were electric lights, central heating, gravity-fed plumbing, water-powered machinery and even a hydraulic lift.
In 1880, the Library became home to the first domestic installation of Joseph Swan’s newly invented incandescent lightbulbs. The original cloisonné vases adapted to hold them are still there.
Walking around it now, it’s easy to forget just how astonishing all of this must have seemed to a Victorian visitor.
We kept finding ourselves doing that thing we always do in old houses.
Imagine actually living here.
Not visiting it.
Not walking through behind a rope.
Actually waking up here on a winter morning, fires burning, servants moving around downstairs and all this extraordinary new technology quietly whirring, pumping and glowing around you.
How Cragside Became Ours
Dogs aren’t allowed inside the house, so Meg sat this particular adventure out while we explored together.
And I’m glad we did.
We normally avoid the house because, well… remember Tom’s 80/20 rule?
But one of the nicest parts of the visit was chatting to one of the guides. We somehow got onto the subject of how a house like Cragside actually ends up being cared for by the National Trust.
The Armstrongs had no children, so the estate eventually passed through their wider family. Later generations lived at Cragside, although Bamburgh Castle became their principal home. In 1977 Cragside was transferred to the National Trust, after which the house underwent an extensive restoration.
The particularly fascinating bit we’d heard was that the property was transferred by HM Treasury in lieu of death duties on the estate of the 2nd Baron Armstrong — one of those little pieces of history that suddenly explains how somewhere so extraordinary survives for the rest of us to wander around on a Saturday afternoon.
And I’m rather glad it did.
Perhaps the 20% Isn’t So Bad
We usually come to Cragside to get away from people.
We walk the quieter paths. Tom finds somewhere unnecessarily difficult to reach. Meg gets muddy. We drink coffee from a flask overlooking something beautiful and feel quietly pleased with ourselves for avoiding everybody else.
But this time we did almost the opposite.
Visitor centre.
Carriage Drive.
Playground.
Coffee kiosk.
House.
People.
And we all agreed it had been fantastic.
Maybe Tom’s precious Pareto Principle still works.
Perhaps sometimes 80% of the fun is hiding in the 20% you’ve been avoiding.
Although I’m absolutely not telling him that.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, there are two Blueberry Bakewell slices in the kitchen that may shortly require renegotiating.
Lucy x
