Here are the answers to some questions that you might have wanted to ask had I not already answered them here. Actually I'm slightly proud to report that someone has now asked one of these questions and I was able to smugly refer them to this page. If by some chance you have a question apart from "why don't you get out more?" then e-mail me or better still e-mail the Council who get paid to answer questions. 

To rhyme with panic. Why? Good question. Probably so we can laugh at tourists for saying Aln-wick. It's on the river Aln (a name where you do pronounce the "L"). The Aln flows into the sea at Alnmouth which we pronounce "AllenMOUTH". It's all to confuse people I think.

Well I'm glad you asked - there's the river Coquet which you say "Coke-It" and lots of places with names ending in "gham" which you pronounce as "Jum".  Whittingham, for example, is actually Whittinjum". Then there are two villages about seven miles outside Alnwick, one called Edlingham and one called Eglingham - even the Northumbrians can't be bothered to learn which is which.

About 8,000. Probably so they can boycott Safeways more effectively.

It all depends where you are, obviously. If you're in London then drive up the A1 till you get to a single carriageway and turn off after 20 miles. Or go by train - the Generally Not Early Railway (GNER) runs a wide selection of up to 4 trains each day from Kings Cross to Alnmouth station which is scarcely 4 miles away. Then get a taxi.

Well here are its rather tenuous claims to fame:

• HOUSE OF HARDY - A famous manufacturer of fishing rods etc. Prince Charles uses them, it is said (no doubt it was what he used to land that dancer in Argentina). The House of Hardy is so famous that it has a museum here. It contains interesting items of fishing tackle, or at least I expect it does.  I've not been there and nor has anyone I know.
• DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND - He lives here, in the castle and owns about 10% of the County of Northumberland. Actually he's not as famous as his late brother, who was the 11th Duke. But the 11th Duke didn't like Alnwick and lived in London so Alnwick can't really count him as a claim to fame. The best parts of the castle are open in the summer. It contains works by Canaletto (including his painting of the castle itself) and many other works of art. It also enjoys stunning views of pastures landscaped by Capability Brown (another Northumbrian, but alas one who left it and is buried in Fenstanton, Cambridgeshire.)
• ALNWICK FAIR - In 1971 the British Tourist Authority gave it a national award for "Best Costumed Event"!!!! The best Costumed Event - in the whole country. We are so proud .
• WARKWORTH CASTLE - Alnwick is quite near Warkworth Castle which is also owned by His Grace. A scene or two of a Shakespeare play (one of the Henrys?) is set in Warkworth Castle.
• ERIC CANTONA - He's not from here (being as how he's french and everything) but he was here in 1997 for the filming of Elizabeth. Didn't stay here too long though.  And anyway, visiting for that reason would be a bit like seagulls following the trawler or whatever it was he said.
• HOGWARTS CASTLE - Alnwick castle stars as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter film.
• OTHER FILMS - Alnwick's been in lots of films.  You will find a list if you go HERE and search for Alnwick.
• BLACKADDER - The first series of Blackadder was filmed at the castle. That's right - Rowan Atkinson has been here!
• THE K FOUNDATION - According to the Northumberland Gazette, which we trust implicitly in all things, TBPFKAKLF (the bizarre people formerly known as the KLF) were planning to build a pyramid out of bricks somewhere near the castle.


It's not clear why. Obviously they'd need the Duke's permission for this and a castle spokesman said that they weren't against the idea in principle because "it would provide work for local bricklayers". Right.

The K foundation, however, seem to like tormenting small towns. Bill Drummond apparently cancelled his headline act at the Ilkley Literature Festival in 1998 and seems to have made the people of Ilkley seem to think this was done as a publicity stunt (!) according to an article I read in the Ilkley Gazette (who move their online archives around so much that I can't be bothered to keep altering the link but the front page is at www.ilkleygazette.co.uk). The organisers took a pragmatic, if controversial view "We have to deal with mad men and we have to take risks and book them." Quite so! And refreshingly honest. Wonder why Mr Drummond cancelled.

• KATE WINSLET - We're scraping the bottom of the barrel now but apparently she came here in March 1998. It is not known whether or not she visited White Swan (one of the rooms in which is from the Titanic's sister ship).
• MATHEMATICIANS - The town has carefully nurtured two FAMOUS mathematicians; George Airy and Edward Collingwood. They're both dead now and realistically there's a limit as to how famous dead mathematicians can be; I mean neither of them are Carol Vorderman are they? Apparently George Airy was Astronomer Royal and took all the credit for discovering Neptune.

Along with the crescent it is one of the symbols of the Percy family (ie the Duke) but the town has nicked it. Now everyone has it as their logo (even me). It has its tail stuck out horizontally. This not, I think, because it is farting or because the tail has frozen in a Northumbrian winter.

There's supposedly an explanation about the sticking-outiness of the column lion which is that it is pointing to Scotland and the tail will wag when the last Scotsman returns to Scotland. But that doesn't explain it really because the lion on the bridge pre-dates the column and doesn't point to Scotland. And the border raids had pretty much ceased by 1773 and 1816 - the respective dates when the bridge and column were built.

The other theory was that the sticking out tail was originally only found on statues (the bridge and the column) and they were made that way because it was easy to make. Not terribly convincing that one, I thought; there are lots of lion statues whose tails don't stick out horizontally and it doesn't sound that easy to make.

This is the Percy Tenantry Column. It was paid for by the Duke's tenants as a thank-you to the Duke because he cut their rents by 25%. Apparently the cut was because they were in a depression after some war or other. During this war the Duke was in charge of the Percy Tenantry Regiment and it is said that having fought alongside them he couldn't see them suffer and so cut the rents. The next Duke soon put them back up again, of course.

What I don't understand is if the rents were cut because the tenants were poor, how could they afford to pay for the column? Doesn't make sense. Anyway the column and its field are now rented to the Council at a market rent. Not that there is much of a market for tenantry columns, even in Northumberland.
 

Indeed it is. Tugged forelocks all round.

Not really. A passable branch of Woolworths which wouldn't rate a mention anywhere else and a couple of interesting arty/crafty shops like the Forge Pottery is as good as it gets.  A model aeroplane shop has just opened too.  Which is nice.  Barter Books at Alnwick Station is a huge excellent second hand bookshop.

It also has a steam engine because they are going to reopen the railway line from Alnwick to Alnmouth.  Unfortunately the steam engine is now the wrong side of the A1 from where they are going to re-open the line.

There used to be an electrical shop called Keith Black Electrical about which I have written this page.

11pm Mondays to Saturdays and 10.30pm on Sundays.

Of course.

No. Never.

Yes, I know. I think he perhaps missed the irony implicit in the preceding questions.

Unfortunately whoever it was hasn't obliged me by resending the message when the guestbook provided deleted all the messages.

Well 50% of the population won't go into Alnwick after dark because they're scared of being mugged. There have not been any muggings in Alnwick in the last three years. So that's much safer than Colchester I'd say.  No triad killings in Alnwick either.

 We love Christmas here. The Christmas lights are excellent. The best lights are on the bondgate tower. Obviously such an historic building must be treated with respect and the lights are dignifies - so we have a lion (obviously) flanked by two Percy Crescents. Then the gateway itself is lit. All this dignity but the tower still ends up looking like a sad face. See now the Alnwick Christmas Lights page
 

16. What day is early closing?

That is is a very dull question but people keep searching the site for the answer to this apparently crucial question.  Presumably they are people who want to visit Alnwick when everything's closed.  Early closing is Wednesday.  But don't expect to find very much closed these days.  Probably better to come on Sunday if you want to find everything closed.  Or in winter. Or at night.  Come to that, if you want to come when the shops are closed why don't you just go somewhere where there are no shops?

17. What about the market day?

Again, not a scintillating question.  It's Saturday.  At the moment.  Would it surprise you to know that the Duke of Northumberland owns the market rights?  By a smart move in 1998 he waited till the Council (who ran the market with his permission from the 1930s to 1999) had done up the market place at huge expense and then took the market off them by re-introducing a historic charge which they felt they couldn't pay.  The fuss got into the national press.  It didn't do much good, but everyone felt better that the subject had been aired.

Well, the castle has its own page which will tell you about the history.  As for the history of Alnwick, it is heavily bound up with the history of the Castle.  It doesn't help that I don't know anything about the town's history, although that's not an absolute bar. Perhaps I will one day, especially as dead people can't sue?