Northumberland Day celebrations in Tynedale will see Langley Castle Hotel offering tours of its battlements conducted by knights in shining armour, plus the opportunity to have a photo taken in one of the castle’s ‘throne chairs’, with a knight by your side, at its event on Saturday May 25.
Children will also be able to play a range of garden games and enjoy traditional pleasures like egg and spoons races. There will also be food and drink available, featuring local produce.
Slaley will have a parish celebration whilst Kirkharle will have all of its flags ‘planted’ by Northumberland Day, with each of the five flags it has installed in the landscape representing something that has happened in history on that very spot.
Haydon Bridge village will be having its regular Northumberland Day community celebration on Sunday May 26, with a street party and activity centred around its church.
Northumberland Day has been embraced by the whole of the county since it was first mooted in July 2015 by Langley Castle Hotel and its organiser, Jane Hunt, managing director of Catapult PR. They managed to get the idea off the ground in 2017 and now, three years on, it has become a phenomenon much-loved and much bigger in scope.
Whilst Langley’s former manager, Anton Phillips, who was in charge at Langley for 25 years, now lives in Spain, to where he retired due to some health scares, he is still as passionate about Northumberland Day as ever. This has been evidenced this year, by his creation of a Northumberland Day paella, at his home in Murcia.
Anton says: “I may be abroad but can play my part in Northumberland Day just as much as others and the colours of paella seemed perfect for a culinary representation of the Northumberland flag. I am proud of what Northumberland Day has managed to achieve in such a short space of time. We are much younger than county days like Yorkshire Day, but are now being celebrated just as fervently. I wish all my former friends and colleagues in Northumberland a brilliant day of celebration.”
More details of Northumberland Day, and how to get involved for next year, can be found at www.northumberlandday.co.uk