Barnard Castle, County Durham

Barnard Castle is a market town on the River Tees that gets its name from its ruined Norman Castle. Apart from the local catchment area of shoppers and castle enthusiasts, the town attracts a mixture of visitors to the rather grand looking Bowes museum (paintings and a famous moving 18th century silver swan), Antique collectors and Caravan owners beside the river.

After my weekend away with friends we returned by a slightly different route through Barnard Castle and although we didn't stop here as it was late on Sunday afternoon, I was fortunate enough to take this picture through the window from the back seat of the car that we were travelling in. We were sitting at some traffic lights waiting to go over the River Tees by means of a single track stone bridge...... How lucky was I  !!!!

(After my best work from the last post, I return to something a bit more ordinary that I did not think good enough to post earlier. I feel that taking this hurried picture was very useful in explaining something that I need to say about the structure of this blog.
A reciprocal follower ...Adrian... has been to Barnard Castle a few times before and has taken some good pictures from various standpoints and wanted to see some of my images in return.
All of my blog posts are taken in chronological order from Easter 2010 and this is the first one that is not. This set should have been post number 5 but didn't happen as for two reasons ....I didn't think they were good enough to put on ... and.... I needed to put some Yorkshire Dales mountain pictures on to create my all round profile..... thanks to the patience of my one solitary follower at that time, my work colleague and blog mentor, Primrose Patch.
Blogging twice a week, the tour that I had to both the English Lake District and Scotland during July and August meant that I am now well behind real time ... the top picture is dated at 12th september ... so I apologise for the lack of Autumn colours at the moment in my posts... I've decided to leave this aspect out. As I have now broken the rules, when the weather deteriorates, I feel I have an excuse to possibly re-visit some of "my past !" in the south west of England during the second half of 2009)

 The market cross was built in 1747 as a gift to the town by Thomas Breaks and marks the point where the road leaves the market area, where the tollbooth once stood, to go down the hill to the River Tees. Unfortunately its previous use as a butter and dairy market, jail and county administrative record store has now been replaced as a busy roundabout !

 The purpose of this day was to take my Mother for a drive in the car for her Birthday. Barnard Castle is a difficult place to get to by bus with her friend so I was happy to oblige with this idea. Most of the shops are quite small and although only a few are quite interesting, it is the atmosphere of the place that I like. While my Mother was in a few of the "less interesting shops"!!!,  I had the opportunity to take two unusual photographs.......

 One of the most unusual and historical English petrol stations that you will ever see !!

Coming to the end of the day, it started to rain .....

...so it was time to move on to the Country teashop in the delightful small village of Staindrop. This establishment lives from passing trade where tourists can park right outside the front door.

It was time to have a slice of (lemon) Birthday cake !! Happy Birthday Mother ..... 5 months late !