Barnard Castle

Why everyone’s talking about...

Barnard Castle sounds nice and off the beaten track...

IT’S certainly an attractive Pennines town. There are ruins of a castle with a 900-year history, the Teesdale Alpaca farm and a museum with a gold mechanical mouse and even a branch of Specsavers (closed Sundays).

But don’t try posting a review on TripAdvisor – submissions about the town were suspended following a flood of recent fake commendations pretending to be from Dominic Cummings in the wake of his 52-mile lockdown round trip to test his eyesight. (‘The perfect place to go if you’re worried you’re going blind!’ was one unwitty contribution.)

Anything of interest happen there… before the PM’s chief adviser put it on the map?

THE first castle was built by Guy de Balliol in 1095 before his nephew Bernard, who gave the place its name, moved in. John, the 5th Baron Balliol, fathered King John of Scotland (possibly born at the castle) and founded the Oxford college that bears the family name. Coincidentally, that’s where Dominic Cummings’s boss, Boris Johnson, studied – as well as the PM’s ITV News tormentor Robert Peston. Legend has it that the baron insulted the Bishop of Durham and, after being whipped, was forced to support scholars as penance. During the Rebellion of the Northern Earls against Elizabeth I in 1569, loyalist George Bowes (forebear of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon) was besieged in the castle. The incident is said to be behind the old expression: ‘Come! Come! That’s Barney Castle!’ It was used in response to someone who had offered a flawed excuse for their actions, according to English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases: A Historical Dictionary.

Any other famous residents?

MORSE/ Lewis actor Kevin Whately and former England rugby stars Rory Underwood and Rob Andrew went to Barnard Castle School, which has the motto ‘Having mastered small matters, you will attempt great ones safely.’

Has Boris ever been there – before the lockdown?

DURING the last General Election campaign, he had to abandon a walkabout in the town after a baying mob of Labour activists turned up. He said: ‘This isn’t consistent with Jeremy Corbyn’s claim to want to take the acrimony and heat out of politics.’ It seems those Left-wingers might now have broken lockdown rules themselves and taken up camp outside Cummings’s London address.