Bamburgh, in north east England, was at one time capital of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, the castle set on a dolerite crag on the shore, serving as a royal fortress. The castle was largely rebuilt in the later nineteenth century by the Newcastle arms manufacturer Lord Armstrong but retains its Norman keep with much of the curtain wall pre-dating the mid-thirteenth century. Ruskin refers to a drawing by Turner which he sees as one of the artist's less successful works.