Ad Gefrin

📌 Distillery & museum in Wooler, Northumberland
★★★★

We used to remark that while Wooler was a pleasant and attractive town, it lacked a specific visitor attraction to draw in tourists. Perhaps someone overheard us, since when passing by in 2023 we discovered that Ad Gefrin had appeared, as if overnight (though in fact the planning spanned several years). The attraction is named after the royal court and Northumbrian power base which stood about five miles to the west in the 7th century, and features England’s northernmost whisky and gin distillery, as well as an Anglo-Saxon museum, bistro and bar. The relatively high ticket price demands a slick visitor experience, and fortunately Ad Gefrin delivers this in style – from the moment you step through the entrance into what resembles an enormous whisky barrel. The distillery’s production area is bright and photogenic, with the excellent tour finishing up in a very classy tasting room. That leaves the museum: partly an audiovisual experience modelled on Ad Gefrin’s Great Hall, and partly a series of displays on Anglo-Saxon Northumbria’s “place” in history and the landscape; this section too is lovingly designed, though possibly a bit small to justify its admission fee.