[201] In Pilgrim Street.
NEWCASTLE
In a letter to her sister, Mrs. Scott, Newcastle is described.
“The town of Newcastle is horrible, like the ways of thrift it is narrow, dark and dirty, some of the streets so steep one is forced to put a dragchain on the wheels: the night I came I thought I was going to the center. The streets are some of them so narrow, that if the tallow chandler ostentatiously hangs forth his candles, you have a chance to sweep them into your lap as you drive by, and I do not know how it has happened that I have not yet caught a coach full of red herrings, for we scrape the Citty wall on which they hang in great abundance. There are some wide streets and good houses. Sir Walter Blackett’s seems a noble habitation.”
Mention is made of the Claverings, Bowes, and Lord Ravensworth calling.
In a letter of August 25 to Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Montagu tells her, that en route to Newcastle, she had visited “Althorpe, the seat of Mr. Spencer, worthy of regard only on account of a very fine collection of pictures. The park is planted in a dull uniformity, the ground flatt (sic), little prospect, has not the advantage of a river or lake.” After repeating the details of her journey, she adds that Denton Hall
“had not been inhabited for 30 years, the poor gentleman having long been a lunatick, so I imagined the rats and ghosts[202] were in such full possession, it would require time to eject them, and I am now placed as I could wish, being within 4 miles of Tinmouth.... We have a very good land as well as water prospect. We see from our windows the place where once lived the Venerable Bede,[203] some little ruins show still, I believe, where the Monastery stood: the place is called Jarrow, the estate belong’d to Sir Thomas Clavering and the late Mr. Rogers. I shall visit it more from respect to the old Historian than curiosity to see a new possession.”
[202] Did she know? It is supposed to be haunted to this day.
[203] The monk Beda, or Bede, born 672, died 735.
ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD