The castle in the United Kingdom that broke a record of visits due to the controversy in Downing Street

The barnard’s castle, located in a small town of the same name in the northeast of the United Kingdom, registered in 2021 a new record of visitors. This happened after having focused the informative attention on a controversy in Downing Street.

A total of 30,721 people, 20% more than in 2019 (before the pandemic), visited last year the evocative semi-ruined fortress of the 12th century, former property of King Richard III, located on a rock above the River Tees, this indicated. Friday the heritage protection organization English Heritage.

The name of the town and its castle, in County Durham, made headlines in May 2020, when it was discovered that the previous March Dominic Cummings, then chief adviser to the prime minister, Boris Johnson, had passed through there with his family on a controversial trip made in full restrictions due to the pandemic.

Cummings, who today no longer works in the Government, acknowledged that, at the beginning of the first confinement, when he had to stay at home, he drove his family the more than 425 kilometers between London and Durham so that his relatives could help with the care of his son after he and his wife fell ill with COVID-19.

When the press uncovered that, while there, on April 12 they had also made a car trip to Barnard Castle, the political strategist argued that it was not for sightseeing but to check if he was okay to drive, specifically the state of his vision , before returning the next day to London.

This excursion in apparent violation of the regulations generated indignation among the population and also a multitude of memes and jokes on the internet, which contributed to the fame of the castle.

The impossibility of traveling abroad at many times during the pandemic boosted, in general, 82% of local tourism in 2021, especially visits to small “jewels” Less well known nationally, English Heritage has noted.

Other attractions that registered more visitors than usual were, among others, the hunting lodge of Boscobel, in Shropshire, where Charles II hid in 1651; the mansion of Wrest Park in Bedfordshire or the Roman sites of Aldborough in North Yorkshire.