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VfZV 



" Thy tower, proud Bamborough, marked they there 

 King Ida's castle huge and square, 

 From its tall rock look grimly down, 

 And on the swelling ocean frown." Scott. 



MILLIONS of years ago, when the earth was still 

 cooling and shrinking, and its crust every now and 

 then wrinkling, like the scum on a saucepan of boiled 

 milk not long taken off the fire, a great bubble rose 

 from the depths and burst where Northumberland 

 and Durham now lie. The explosion was felt from 

 shore to shore on the mainland as it now exists and 

 far out into the North Sea, and has left, among other 

 memorials of its violence, the headland of once 

 molten rock which has carried for centuries the 

 magnificent pile of Bamborough Castle and the 

 group of volcanic islands on which it looks down. 



The Castle, after standing sieges innumerable and 

 playing an important part in the turbulent politics 

 of the Border, like Charles V. retiring to a monastery, 

 has passed to a charitable trust. The fire-scarred 

 basalt rocks from which its walls rise are in spring 

 and summer pink and white with tufts of thrift and 



