THE late Queen Mother had close links with Gibside and used to visit the estate with her father in the early 1900s when it was no longer occupied by the family and the buildings had started to deteriorate.
The family would have picnics outside the banqueting house with a view of the estate, before it was forested.
The Queen Mother had connections to the region which go back hundreds of years before she was born.
Her ancestors, the Bowes, originally came from Richmond, North Yorkshire, and acquired the Streatlam estate and Daldon manor in the 14th Century.
They later became the Bowes-Lyon family, which built landmarks such as Gibside, and the Bowes Museum, at Barnard Castle, County Durham.
The Queen Mother's great-great-nephew, the 18th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorn, still owns land in the region and the Queen Mother visited his estate at Holwick, near Barnard Castle, throughout her life.
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