Rothbury railway station

Rothbury is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the River Coquet. It is 14 miles (22.5 km) north-west of Morpeth and 26 miles (42 km) north of Newcastle upon Tyne. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 2,107. Rothbury emerged as an important town because of its location at a crossroads over a ford on the River Coquet. Turnpike roads leading to Newcastle, Alnwick, Hexham and Morpeth allowed for an influx of families and the enlargement of the settlement during the Middle Ages. In 1291, Rothbury was chartered as a market town and became a centre for dealing in cattle and wool for the surrounding villages during the Early Modern Era. Later, Rothbury developed extensively in the Victorian era, due in large part to the railway and the industrialist Sir William Armstrong. Between 1862 and 1865, Armstrong built Cragside, a country house and "shooting box" (hunting lodge) just outside Rothbury, and extended it as a "fairy palace" between 1869 and 1900. The house and its estate are now owned by the National Trust and are open to the public, attracting many visitors to the area.

Rothbury Community Hospital in Rothbury, Northumberland, England, is managed by the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

The Thrum Mill is a grade II-listed water mill in Rothbury, Northumberland, England. The water mill dates back to 1665.

Cragside is a Victorian Tudor Revival country house near the town of Rothbury in Northumberland, England. It was the home of William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Whitworth armaments firm. An industrial magnate, scientist, philanthropist and inventor of the hydraulic crane and the Armstrong gun, Armstrong also displayed his inventiveness in the domestic sphere, making Cragside the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power. The estate was technologically advanced; the architect of the house, Richard Norman Shaw, wrote that it was equipped with "wonderful hydraulic machines that do all sorts of things". In the grounds, Armstrong built dams and lakes to power a sawmill, a water-powered laundry, early versions of a dishwasher and a dumb waiter, a hydraulic lift and a hydroelectric rotisserie. In 1887, Armstrong was raised to the peerage, the first engineer or scientist to be ennobled, and became Baron Armstrong of Cragside. The original building consisted of a small shooting lodge which Armstrong built between 1862 and 1864. In 1869, he employed the architect Richard Norman Shaw to enlarge the site, and in two phases of work between 1869 and 1882, they transformed the house into a northern Neuschwanstein. The result was described by the architect and writer Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel as "one of the most dramatic compositions in all architecture". Armstrong filled the house with a significant art collection; he and his wife were patrons of many 19th-century British artists. Cragside became an integral part of Armstrong's commercial operations: honoured guests under Armstrong's roof, including the Shah of Persia, the King of Siam and two future Prime Ministers of Japan, were also customers for his commercial undertakings. Following Armstrong's death in 1900, his heirs struggled to maintain the house and estate. In 1910, the best of Armstrong's art collection was sold off, and by the 1970s, in an attempt to meet inheritance tax, plans were submitted for large-scale residential development of the estate. In 1971 the National Trust asked the architectural historian Mark Girouard to compile a gazetteer of the most important Victorian houses in Britain which the Trust should seek to save should they ever be sold. Girouard placed Cragside at the top of the list; in 1977, the house was acquired by the Trust with the aid of a grant from the National Land Fund. A Grade I listed building since 1953, Cragside has been open to the public since 1979.

The Northumberland Sandstone Hills are a major natural region in the English county of Northumberland. The hills form distinctive skylines with generally level tops, northwest facing scarps and craggy outcrops offering views to the Cheviots further west. The Northumberland Sandstone Hills lie not far from the coast of Northumberland and the region is listed as National Character Area no. 2 by Natural England, the UK Government's advisor on the natural environment. The region covers an area of 72,694 hectares (281 sq mi), beginning at Kyloe in the north and running in a strip roughly 10–15 kilometres (6–9 mi) wide and parallel to the coastal plain as far as Alnwick, where it changes direction to head southwest via Thrunton Wood, Rothbury Forest and Harwood Forest to the area of Throckington and the River Rede, passing over the highest peaks in the area, including Tosson Hill (1,444 feet (440 m)) in the Simonside Hills. The region has a range of semi-natural habitats: moorland with heather and rough, acid grassland mosaics on the thin, sandy soils of the higher steeper slopes and broken ground, transitioning through scrub, and oak or birch woodland to improved farmland and parkland on the lower slopes. Wet peaty flushes, mires, loughs and small reservoirs are dotted throughout the area and there are many caves, including St Cuthbert's Cave and Cateran Hole. Fifteen per cent of the NCA lies within the Northumberland National Park; it also contains one Special Protection Area – Holburn Lake & Moss – and three Special Areas of Conservation – Simonside Hills, Harbottle Moors, and River Tweed – as well as eighteen Sites of Special Scientific Interest, the SSIs totalling 3,771 hectares (14.6 sq mi). Its major watercourses are the rivers Aln, Till, Coquet, Font and Rede, and the Fallowlees Burn.

Cartington Castle is a ruinous, partly restored medieval English castle in the hamlet of Cartington, 2 miles (3.2 km) north-west of Rothbury in the county of Northumberland, England, looking down on the River Coquet. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade I listed building.

Long Crag is a hill to the north of Rothbury in Northumberland, England. It lies within the Thrunton Woods, a Forestry Commission-owned area of forestry plantations. Thrunton Woods have many marked trails provided by the Forestry Commission, and there are many routes to the summit.

Cartington is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Thropton, in Northumberland, England. It is about 11 miles (18 km) south west of Alnwick, and about 2 miles (3 km) north west of Rothbury. In 2019 it had an adult population of 95, after having returned a population of 97 in 2001.

Thropton is a hamlet in Northumberland, England, located on the River Coquet, and its tributary Wreigh Burn. With a population of 780 (2021 census) it is situated 1.9 miles (3.1 km) west of the village of Rothbury connected by the B6431 near the junction of the Wreigh Burn and the River Coquet. In the hamlet is a stone bridge over the Wreigh Burn which was built in 1811. Thropton is on the edge of Northumberland National Park, and the surrounding area north and south of the hamlet consists of haughs, and also to the south on the opposite side of the Coquet lies Simonside Hills, a hill range that has many crags dotted along it. Thropton was known in the past as Tattie-toon, a reference to the fertility of the soil in the surrounding area.

Snitter is a village and civil parish in Northumberland, England. It is near the Northumberland National Park. The closest town is Rothbury.

Thrunton Wood is an area of woodland and open moor, and is located 5 miles (8.0 kilometres) north of Rothbury, which in itself a small market town in Northumberland. It is a popular destination with walkers/hikers, mountain bikers and horse riders, and is home to two waymarked walking trails: Castle Hill walk (5 miles), and Crag Top walk (1 mile). There is an Iron Age fort on Castle Hill, and Thrunton Wood is home to several caves, including Macartney's Cave, once home to a local monk, and Thomas Wedderburn's Hole, where a local highwayman reputedly once hid from the law. It was heavily affected by Storm Arwen (back in November 2021) which made it mostly inaccessible to public due to a large number of fallen/uprooted trees. More recently, a lot of the trees have been cut down. There is also a popular trout fishery nearby, located just a quarter mile to the east.

The Simonside Hills are a hill range in Northumberland, England near the town of Rothbury. Most of the hills are around 300–400 metres (980–1,310 ft) high and are popular spots for hikers in the area. The highest point is Tosson Hill at 440 metres (1,444 ft). There are several single pitch rock climbing crags dotted along the hillside, notably Simonside North Face and Ravensheugh.