Explore the Whin Sill at Bamburgh on the next geo-walk

The Whin Sill is the bedrock of many of Northumberland’s most iconic landmarks – Lindisfarne Castle, Dunstanburgh Castle and, not least, Bamburgh Castle.

The walk in association with the Northumberland Coast AONB, led by local expert Dr Ian Kille of Northumbrian Earth, will start at 10am and finish at around 1pm.

It will be approximately 5km and strong boots are recommended as it will involve some scrambling across rocks on the foreshore. The meeting point is by the war memorial under Bamburgh Castle.

The castle rock and the coast northwards to Stag Rock provide some of the best locations to understand how the Whin Sill formed and include some unique features of international importance.

Ian said: “The extraordinary footage we have seen this year of new volcanoes forming in Iceland, disgorging continuous streams of magma with photogenic explosions from the craters, gives some idea of the enormous power of igneous events. Yet the scale of what happened to create the Whin Sill was on a much bigger scale than these volcanoes.

“It also took place a kilometre or two underground and it is only now, some 300 million years after the event, that this now cooled magma has been exposed at the surface for us to take a look at.”

Booking is essential for all walks. To book a place, email Ian at [email protected]

For full details of this walk and others, go to www.northumbrianearth.co.uk/geo-walks