delegate activities
Reception and Lunch - complimentary.
Conference Dinner @ Blackfriars is optional and costs an additional £40/person.
Optional Sightseeing Trip @ Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens.
Sir John de Strivelyn is believed to have built the castle at Belsay at the end of the fourteenth century to protect himself and his family against attack. By 1707, when Scotland and England were united, the turbulent times were over, and a large house surrounded by gardens was built on to the castle. In 1798 Charles Middleton (later known as Sir Charles Monck) inherited Belsay. His honeymoon took him to Athens, where he stayed for a year and decided to design a new Greek-style residence. The construction began 1807 and continued until 1830. The gardens were constantly redesigned from the early 1800s to 1933, influenced by the ‘picturesque’ style and particularly two famous landscape designers: Humphry Repton and William Robinson, famous for their ‘wild’ gardens. The most famous of the landscape features is the Quarry Garden, which was excavated to supply the stone for the construction of Belsay Hall. Sir Charles Monck’s grandson, Sir Arthur Middleton replanted the Quarry Garden and constructed the Walled Garden, Yew Garden and the Magnolia Terrace.
The hall and its environs became the property of English Heritage in 1980.
On a practical note: some of the areas have unrailed ha-has and in the castle there are steep steps, which limit its accessibility.
