Bamburgh Castle owner expects reopening to be 'an emotional moment' after 'harrowing' few months

The castle – which covers a nine-acre site - is planning to open its grounds and staterooms in line with the phased easing of coronavirus restrictions.

Alongside this, the castle’s management team have completed rigorous health and safety planning with external specialists and are introducing a number of covid-secure measures to protect visitors and staff.

William Douglas is visitor services manager at Bamburgh Castle, he said: “We are excited to be welcoming visitors back to Bamburgh Castle again, however the safety and wellbeing of our visitors and our team is absolutely fundamental.

“Our team of safety experts have been working closely with external health and safety consultants and partners including destination management organisations like Visit England to ensure we reopen as a trusted, covid-secure attraction, where people can still enjoy a phenomenal visitor experience with confidence.”

Bamburgh Castle owner Francis Watson Armstrong said: “Bamburgh Castle simply is a magnificent place to visit and truly is a national treasure that people are longing to visit once again.

“We are fortunate to have nine acres of some of Britain’s most spectacular open spaces for people to experience, along with views of our famous stretch of coastline that you just can’t observe from anywhere else. It will be amazing to see the castle and grounds come to life with people once again and we’re looking forward to opening our gates. It will be an emotional moment.

“The past few months have been harrowing for everyone. Our team has worked very hard in these difficult times to bring us to this point where we have peace of mind to open our doors once again.

“We will continue to monitor and follow government regulations at all times and update our plans should any changes arise, with the safety of the public and our staff being paramount.”

New safety measures include restricted visitor numbers, becoming a cashless site, marked social distancing, a preferred route with signed walkways in the staterooms and grounds, enhanced cleaning programmes and hand sanitisation stations throughout. It is also bringing in additional, high-quality portable WCs.

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