Saturday 4 December 2010

Lumley Castle, Chester-le-street


Lumley Castle has been used as a 59 bedroomed hotel since 1976. It overlooks the town of Chester-le street on the banks of the River Wear. The nearby Riverside stadium is home to Durham County Cricket club and is one of England's newest test cricket venues. Famous world cricketers use this hotel when playing against the England team.


Lumley Castle is a 14th century castle named after Ralph Lumley who transformed his Manor into a castle. Despite staying in the family hands for a while, ownership was transferred to the Bishop of Durham during the 19th century and was a temporary home to some Durham University students. The Castle was eventually sold during the 1960s to fund student accommodation that was nearer to Durham City. There are stories that some of the West Indian cricket team moved to other accommodation as they thought it was haunted....probably Lady Lily of Lumley !!


Apart from the recent pictures that you saw of Newcastle Central Station, this is the closest post to home that I have done. Amazingly, I have never been in the building before as it is so expensive.


On the 7th November, I attended an Art exhibition for about 1 hour to help out a friend of a friend. The Artist was David Welsh and this was an opportunity that I was not going to miss with the camera for a photographic post here..





courtyard accommodation







(This has been a week of change... firstly the snow has finally finished off everything about Autumn rather quickly and harshly.
It has affected my travel plans for today and also for the whole of last week for work when I had to share a very small space on the bus, metro train with at times, long peaceful walks in the snow !! I have never known the buses so busy.
Secondly, I have added a more versatile camera to my collection this week with a test photograph of my three rubbish bins taken today below. I'll probably talk about it in the new year as I am still using other photographic material up.

Lastly, we all make errors of judgement ......Autumn can be a time for clearing out the rubbish and it is time for disposing of things that cause unnecessary mess.  Lets hope I can manage to put mine in the bin for the binman ... !! )




11th April 2019 - I am currently reloading all my photos again in chronological order thanks to a photo storage issue with another website.

As a postscript, back in 2010, I couldn't have imagined the possibility of staying here when then these photographs were taken but things often take a twist ... 

RAW photo by Mike, edits by me !!

... and I ended up having my wedding reception here in 2016.  

It is unfortunate that you can't take your own wedding photographs so we hired a work colleague of a family member the time called Mike (seriously can't remember his surname). We agreed that Mike would take the images in RAW form and I would add all edit such as sharpening, saturation, highlights, lightening, un_shadowing and colour popping. Apologies to Mike for watermarking it for security issues but I did do some work on it as well.

19 comments:

  1. What is it about a castle that is so charming? Maybe it is the history. I love the textures of time on the building.

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  2. Another excellent set. I should have gone for a look round whilst in the area. The corridor with the busts is a grand image as is the stair well.

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  3. Hi, J_on_tour! Only now I realize you are from around Newcastle. I spent one month in Durham some years ago, so I visited Newcastle also.

    I like best the courtyard accommodation and the last stairs.

    Have a nice weekend!

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  4. Love this castle, it's superb. My favourite is courtyard accommodation!
    Seems that you also have much snow:)

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  5. I love your choice of objects to photograph! And my favorite in this collection is the 'haunted stairs.' How cool that you had the opportunity to visit that place! Now I know where all the heads are to those headless statues in Greece - Lumley Castle and Castle Howard. LOL

    By the way, Joe is over 6' tall, so he would have stood on the next-to-top step of the ladder to place the snowman's head on top. :-) Will your snow melt soon, or will you have to shovel snow? It's a pain to deal with, but it is pretty to look at, isn't it.

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  6. Beautiful pictures, and this wonderful castle takeing us back in time. I love it:)
    Wishing you a nice weekend.
    Warm hug:)

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  7. Hey, J! Here is raining 'till morning! Soon the snow will come here...
    I came to see autumn in your photo and I think that tonight I want to stay in Lumley Castle and to be a princess!To walk on those stairs listening to the sound of the silent harp...

    I like 'Les Vignes de chateauneuf du pape ' of your friend's friend David Welsh even if it's price is £ 2500 ha ha...
    Anyway, strange...
    Last week I bought a new camera too...but my eyes will remain the same...I hope!

    I will use that bin also!
    Thanks!

    I wish you all the best!
    Regards!

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  8. I love hotels in historic buildings and this one looks just great.

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  9. Love the Haunted staircase great set of images from a place not too far from my home town of Cramlington Northumberland. Thanks for your comment on my blog. If you want to try HDR let me know and I will tell you how to do it and what software to use. Nice to hear from a fellow Northerner.

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  10. Beautiful photos as usual. My favorites are the courtyard accomadations and the steps.
    I'm still filling rubbish bins myself.

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  11. Wonderful photos of what seems to be a fantastic castle!
    Have a fabulous day!

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  12. Thanks for your nice comment on my barns and snow post. It's zero degrees here right now, and sometimes like this it's more pleasant to sit beside a roaring fire and view it all through a window. We do appreciate having this view, but it would be nice to have our landscape sprinkled with an occasional castle or abbey.

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  13. Love the pictures of the castle--what an interesting place to visit. Nothing like that in the USA. I love the last picture of the stairs with the beautiful colored leaves on them--very nice. You are right about Fall being a good time to "clean up things". Good luck with your new camera equipment.

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  14. Farmchick... Thanks, It was great to visit this castle for the first time, I've seen the towers through the trees on numerous occasions from the main London to Edinburgh road.

    Adrian... Thanks, the exciting thing about going somewhere with the camera is you never know what you are going to find and it's all fresh and original in ones eye. I expected to get the exterior shots although the door was more grand than I expected. I was a bit disappointed with the inner exterior (i.e. photo 12 area ) of the castle photographically but I think there was enough material to fill a post... which was my original worry

    Andras... Thanks, pleased you enjoyed them.

    Travelling Hawk... Thanks, Only now do you realise that the next journey I made was to your favourite northern place of Durham.

    Trevor Woodford... Thanks, great to see you again.

    Joo... Thanks, Glad you liked them, the courtyard accommodation picture seems to be a popular choice with my fellow travellers on here.

    Cranberry Morning... Thanks, Maybe I'll have to dig out more objects that possibly Hadrian brought from Rome !! It's quite a while since I've been to Castle Howard.. always popular for TV dramas.

    Berit... Thanks, It's nice that you enjoyed the journey today, great to see you.

    Wind... Thanks, Autumn disappeared fast before I had a chance to show these. It is possible to be a Princess here... if someone has the money to match the price of the paintings !! I'll have to see if I can put a good word in for you ... it turns out that my Mother knows the wife of David Welsh although she has not seen her for a while as they mostly live in France now. I'm progressing with the new camera... used it on the Durham (2) post coming next.
    You will be pleased to know by now that I am using the bin !

    JM... Thanks, It's fascinating and a great recycling use of an old castle.

    Pictureit... Thanks, The haunted stair photo was the one that I had most work with. I had 5 takes of this one originally as I couldn't get the light right and there was another problem in the processing that took most of one night to do on this photo. I still wasn't happy with it but gave up in the end as I thought it was passable to everyone. Now that I've pointed it out........

    Sweet Virginia Breeze... Thanks, it was good to be able to catch up with an autumn scene, no matter how brief.

    Debbie Smith... Thanks, Hope you are enjoying your big trip at the moment.

    Forgetmenot... Thanks, It was a chance of a lifetime to gain access to somewhere so close and yet in financial terms so far away. It's nice to get the chance to clean up. Camera going well, hope you got my e-mail and the information I sent was useful.

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  15. Funny to see the trash bins covered with a thick layer of snow among all those 'serious' objects of your awsome photos ( the castle, stairs, faces from the past, autumn leaves).
    Durham seems to be a place worth visiting.

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  16. DUTA... I try not to take myself too seriously. The post before that was probably a bit too serious. However, I needed to end with something profound and felt I had to lighten it up a little with a picture.

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