Filming to take place at Bamburgh Castle with request made for closure of main village car park

No details of the project have been made public but a request has been made for closure of the main visitor car park.

Cllr Guy Renner-Thompson, Bamburgh ward member at Northumberland County Council, revealed: “They wanted to book out the council car park for three weeks but that’s been scaled back now to four days from June 7-11."

He said the council had raised concern about potential congestion if there are a lot of tourists around.

However, discussions have been held with Bamburgh Castle Estates which has agreed to open a field for temporary parking.

"It means the film crew can still do what they need to do and we’d still have the right amount of car parking,” said Cllr Renner-Thompson.

"My view is that the film production has compromised quite a lot already from three weeks down to just a few days and we have spent years asking them to come so I wouldn’t want it to fall at the last hurdle and have them turn around and leave because of the car park.

"They have managed to do as much as they can on site but when they are doing the filming they need these trucks as close to the castle as they can get them.”

He raised the issue at a meeting of Bamburgh Parish Council so he could feed back its views.

Parish councillors were aware of the filming but had no further information.

"There’s a lot of NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) apparently,” said Cllr Andrew Bardgett.

The parish council said it had no objection to the proposal but would request a donation to go towards its proposed play park revamp.

"They (the production company) will have to pay the equivalent of what the car park income could have been, although I don’t know the details,” said Cllr Renner-Thompson.

Cllr Barbara Brook, parish council chairman, said: “If we can get a donation I think that would be a very good deal because we don’t get anything (income) from that car park.”

A statement on Bamburgh Castle’s website notes: “Bamburgh Castle will be closed on May 25 and from June 4-12, 2021 due to filming. We apologise for any inconvenience.”

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