Tynemouth Priory and Castle,
originally uploaded by me.

I promise this is the last photo of the day 🙂

This is a picture of the grave yard to the read of the priory at “Tynemouth Castle.” (An English Heritage site at the mouth of the river Tyne, oddly enough :-))

Most, if not all the graves with readable details on date to the 17th or 18th centuries – some from the early 19th but not many. Despite this, apparently King (later Saint) Oswin of Deira and King Osred II of Northumbria are supposed to be buried here. All I can say is I never found their gravestones.

Apparently the priory / monastry did well until the disolution under Henry VIII. During his reign, the Monks here surrendered the site to the king, and he apparently decided it was more suitable for a costal defence fort – and the castle was built.

It is a strange site – it has lots of early medieval parts (the priory for example), is ringed with a sixteenth century artillery fortress, has WW1 and WW2 gun emplacements and, best of all, a 1960’s tower building (looks like an Air Traffic Control tower) which now appears to be home of the CCTV monitoring site. All very amusing.