Morpeth, located in Northumberland, is the county town and sits alongside the River Wansbeck. It's a bustling market town has history that can be traced back to the 12th century and it's where i grew up.

I'm positive I moved here in around '94-'95, the latter being the famous year of Shaggy's "Mr Boombastic" so i'd have been around the age of 6-7 years old when that banger came out.

At that age i had little appreciation for things like history, architecture or graded buildings like you see here. You'd more likely find me sat in the house playing Super Mario on my SNES or outside playing football on the field for hours on end with my two friends: Nick and Stu.

Morpeth has changed a lot in ways. As you get older i believe things are never as good as they were. There are little bits of Morpeth's history that have dissapeared:

Smail & Son hardware store, where you could take in a screw to the man at the back of the shop and he's pull a little draw full of the same ones. If you could think of it, they had it. The building is now home to popular Lollo Rosso, italian restaurant.

Simpson's Sweet Shop on Manchester Street. This was a traditional sweet shop selling sweets to snotty kids like me and my mates by the 1/4 in a mass of jars that lined the walls from floor to ceiling.

Coliseum Cinema on New Market Street which was next to Barnaby's Ice Cream Parlour. I remember going to watch the film Paulie fairly regularly, that's all i was old enough to watch and that's about the only kids film that was played. Sadly it closed in 2000 and i never got to watch Paulie there again. Having watched the film just a few years ago, i realise now it was probably for the best (no offence if you're a die-hard Paulie fan)

Whilst there's a number of things i remember as a child that have gone, there's a bit of charm about Morpeth and with elements of modernisation I can see why it's seen as an attractive place for people to live.

For those that live there or those that are visiting there's some beautifully historic landmarks which are all encompassed within the town. Many of these you will either walk over, walk past or you can walk in to. And, If you look up, a number of old buildings have datestones which tell you the year they were built.

The oldest building you can walk in to that comes to my mind is Grade I listed Morpeth Chantry which is home to the Tourist Information and was built in 1296. There's the chantry footbridge which is pictured above also erected around the 13th century.

A 60ft clocktower stands proud in the middle of the town, also pictured above. This is somewhat more modern by comparison, built in the 1600s but still in use today, ocassionally working, ocassionally not.