Forty-two miles north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, perched 150ft above sea level on an outcrop of the Great Whin Sill, is Bamburgh Castle.

The man charged with managing one of the major tourist attractions in the North East is Chris Calvert, the castle administrator. He is well aware of his good fortune in being able to call the castle home.

“The job comes with accommodation in the castle,” says Calvert, who arrived at Bamburgh in 2007, having managed the monastery on Iona in Scotland. “It's an incredible place to live and work.”

Calvert's first job was selling bread in Asda, but he soon embarked upon a career in tourism that took him to the Alps, Greece and the Caribbean.

He rates Bamburgh more highly even than the tropical idyll of Martinique, where he worked for some time: “It's stunning here. Martinique was beautiful but it was often so hot that you couldn't walk on the sand.”

Even allowing for the best of English summers, scorching sand will not be a problem on the unspoilt beach overlooked by Bamburgh Castle.

The pretty village of Bamburgh is the birthplace of Grace Darling, British maritime history's most celebrated heroine. In 1838, with her father, William, Darling helped to rescue survivors of the wreck of the SS Forfarshire, which she had seen in distress from the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands.

The pair rowed a 21ft Northumberland coble - an open fishing boat common to the North East - over ferocious seas to reach survivors. It was an act of bravery that led to Darling acquiring celebrity status.

Deep within the keep of Bamburgh Castle is a pair of huge chains used by Dr John Sharp, the village curate in the 18th century, for the salvage of ships.

Dr Sharp stipulated that the chains were “to be lent gratis to any person who has occasion for them, within 40 or 50 miles along the coast, on giving proper security for their return”. I wasn't able to fathom whether the chains had been used in the salvage of the SS Forfarshire, but I did learn that the doctor is apparently one of Bamburgh's ghosts.

Not, though, that this is likely to bother Calvert. “I love it here,” he says, with the ancient tidal island of Lindisfarne rising from the sea in the distance. “So far as I'm concerned this is a job for life.”