Chillingham Castle and Chillingham Wild Cattle

Today was a surprise for me for some reason. After getting up, we had coffee and bacon and egg rolls, and then set off for our adventure at around 10:00.

Debbie was driving, and after about an hour and fifteen minutes, we arrived at our destination, which turned out to be Chillingham Castle, supposedly the most haunted castle in England. It turns out we were also booked on a tour and experience with the Chillingham Wild Cattle later on.

We spent the best part of a couple of hours exploring the very bizarre castle, full of all sorts of knick-knacks, interesting objects and frankly tat. We didn't see any ghosts. We also took advantage of the tea room for a drink and some cake.

From here we walked back to the entrance to the Chillingham Wild Cattle experience to meet our tour. After a short video, our guides took us in a trailer to where we would do a short walk to see the cattle.

The cattle are one of only two places in the world to find this breed, the other being a reserve population in Scotland. They have an amazingly 95% gene similarity with each other, which compares to around 19% for normal cattle, and at that level you would expect significant problems, but it's thought that these have been bred out over the years.

We spent a fascinating hour observing the animals with a really interesting guide before getting back on the trailer to go to the entrance.

Next stop was some Sunday lunch at the Anglers Inn on the way back to the house. We had a delicious meal and then headed back home.

Once we were back we spent the rest of the day chatting, playing games, having a glass of wine or two and then finally watching, perhaps appropriately, the first series of Ghosts.

A lovely day with great friends and amazingly the weather held for us.Read more