An Electrifying Home in Northumberland

By Linda Tancs

Surrounded by one of Europe’s largest rock gardens, Cragside is a Victorian country house near the town of Rothbury in Northumberland, England. Built in 1863 by Lord Armstrong (a civil and mechanical engineer), it was the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectricity, harnessing lakes on the estate to generate electricity through a turbine. You can take a walk around two of those lakes, one of many waymarked trails among the estate’s 1,000 acres.