{"id":5016,"date":"2026-07-16T15:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=5016"},"modified":"2026-07-16T15:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:55:10","slug":"enjoyable-day-at-cragside-house-and-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=5016","title":{"rendered":"Enjoyable day at Cragside House and Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thursday, July 16 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Road video and map<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today’s main focus was a visit to “Britain’s first smart home”, which is the way the National Trust describes Cragside House and Gardens<\/em>. Almost every review or blog article I read about Cragside said you need a day to visit so that’s what I planned and I was not disappointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cragside is a hilly 1,000 acre estate that, in the late 19th century, was owned by William and Margaret Armstrong. William was a successful businessman who developed armaments which were sold globally and experimented with hydraulics as a way to improve life. His armaments company produced everything from field guns to battleships and his hydraulics company produced the mechanisms that operate the Newcastle swing bridge and was originally used to raise the lower level of London’s Tower Bridge for boats to pass under. These innovations financed his experimentation at Cragside. Margaret was wealthy in her own right and a botanist who was instrumental in developing the beautiful gardens. Both were generous philanthropists and their endowments helped to establish the Great North Museum<\/em> and Newcastle University<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William was dedicated to using the flow of water over his hilly estate to provide a more comfortable life in the house. He created dams and lakes on the property to manage the water to drive generators and pumps which provided central heating, gravity fed hot and cold running water, a telephone connection to the tenant farmers on the land, and the first home in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grounds are beautiful and the first thing I did was walk one of the many trails to see much of the water management that William developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All of the lakes on the property are man made by constructing dams. This is Tumbleton Lake which he created in 1895.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tumbleton Lake was used to generate electricity using an Archimedes Screw. Traditionally the mechanism was used to raise water by having animals turn the screw but he used flowing water to turn the screw and generator to provide hydro-electric power for the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The gardens were engineered to be beautiful, functional and sustainable. The stream that flows from the generator passes through a man made creek which the house it was serving overlooked.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The stream then flows over these artificial waterfalls into a man made gorge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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He later added this bigger generator to provide more electricity and I had to take a picture as this is the exact layout that physics textbooks use to represent electric motors and generators to this day. The large coils seen about two thirds of the way to the right rotate between the fixed magnets either side. The same equipment can be used as a motor if the coils are fed with electricity or can generate electricity if the axle is rotated.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After almost two hours walking the trail and looking at the exhibits I toured the house which contained an experimental dish washer and other gadgets to impress the Armstrong visitors and make this one of the most advanced homes of it’s time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This living room shows the level of lighting that came from the hydro-electric supply.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was a 6 mile driving loop called the Carriage Drive around the estate and, after having lunch at the visitor centre, I drove this and walked another trail before leaving for Gateshead, just south of Newcastle. It was a wonderful visit which very much matched up with my interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, July 16 2026 Road video and map Today’s main focus was a visit to “Britain’s first smart home”, which is the way the National Trust describes Cragside House and Gardens. Almost every review or blog article I read about Cragside said you need a day to visit so that’s what I planned and I … Continue reading Enjoyable day at Cragside House and Gardens<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[102],"tags":[40],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5016"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5029,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions\/5029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}