The Romantic conception of the north owed as much to its castles, abbeys and cathedrals as to its natural scenery. Thomas Girtin visited Bamburgh on a northern tour in 1796. This watercolour was made for his Yorkshire patron, Edward Lascelles of Harewood House, near Leeds. It gives a brooding air to the ruined Norman castle, then partly adapted as a refuge for mariners shipwrecked on the trecherour Northumberland coast.

Like his friend Turner, Girtin appealed to the interest in the nation's heritage that burgeoned in the years of war with revolutionary France.