“The east and north sides of the Sandhill are enclosed by lofty and commodious buildings, many of which contain very large and magnificent rooms, that indicate the grandeur of the ancient merchants of Newcastle. Most of the shops, until lately, retained their old form, being quite open in front, and without glass windows. But they are now all modernised; and the heavy projections and balconies above being pulled down, the whole range has assumed a light, airy and elegant appearance. The old houses, however, still exhibit some curious peculiarities; and as they were built before any window-tax was contemplated, the entire front of the dwelling-rooms is occupied by windows'
From Eneas Mackenzie’s - ‘History of Newcastle’ - 1827.
For the first 24 days of December, Newcastle has an initiative called '24 Doors'. An advent calendar with a difference in that on each of those 24 days, various buildings around the city open their doors to the public for that one day. Some are historical buildings that the public rarely gets to enter. Some, such as theatres, churches, the castle and the market, offer a 'behind-the-scenes' glimpse of their inner workings.
The visits are free and popular, with places limited. I grabbed the opportunity to visit two. One was a behind-the-scenes tour of the opulent Georgian Theatre Royal, and the other, which I write about here, is Bessie Surtees House.
Now, I briefly mentioned Bessie in my piece 'Things that Go Bump in the Night’ but having visited the home where she lived in the 18th Century, I believe it and Bessie deserve a longer piece.
Let's start with the house that, even in Bessie's time, had stood for over three hundred years. No one knows the precise date of the building of it and the other houses that stand on that part of the quayside in the centre of Newcastle. Still, records show the selling of Bessie Surtees House to John Belt by a wealthy lawyer, Robert Rhodes, in 1465.
At that time and until the coming of the railways some four hundred years later, the centre of Newcastle was the quayside and the nearby Sandhill. Indeed, from Roman times, that part of Newcastle was in constant use for landing supplies for the garrison of Pons Aelius, Newcastle's then-name (although you may recall from my piece 'Frontier Town' there wasn't a town, just a fort). By the later Middle Ages, most occupations of those who lived in Newcastle revolved around shipping. Thus, it was around Sandhill that saw the building of the Guildhall, fine merchant houses such as Bessie Surtees’, the Exchange and the fish market.
The name Sandhill derives, not surprisingly, from the fact there literally used to be a hill of sand in that location when the tide was out. The reclaiming of the land from the river happened gradually between the 12th and 15th Centuries. Traditionally, the area was a place where locals would gather to trade. Even after the building of the places I mentioned above Sandhill was still a centre for feasting and other events with the performing of miracle plays, etc. On the darker side, it was also the place of execution.
The English Civil War caused much damage to the Sandhill area. However, the war's end proved an opportunity for much improvement of the buildings there. Sandhill soon became a thriving area with many grand buildings in which wealthy tradespeople lived.
Bessie Surtees House and the other houses alongside it stand very tall at five storeys. All would have shops offering various goods on the ground floor and living accommodation on the upper floors. They are multi-storeyed because the building’s footprint could not exceed the measurements of the original medieval burgage plots. So, the expansion could only be upwards and not outwards. Each floor slightly overhangs that below, but the house is built so well that the timber-framed frontage is original.
Bessie Surtees House had various occupants, and before Aubone Surtees moved with his family there in 1754 as a tenant of the then-owner Thomas Davison, the lower floor was Nellie's Coffee House. Aubone was a banker, so he enjoyed a good income and a cracking first name. Aubone is a corruption of Aubyn from Sir John Aubyn, who came over to England with William the Conquer. After William's victory at Hastings, he granted Sir John lands in Devon. How Aubone became a first name is now lost to history.
Thomas Davison was a Merchant adventurer. It's a glamorous-sounding profession, but it's a rather fanciful name for merchants whose primary business was exporting cloth from England, especially undyed plain-woven cloth, usually of wool, in exchange for an extensive range of goods from overseas. The merchants then sold these goods in England. Davison was also one of the governors of the Merchant Adventurers, meaning he must have been good at his trade. And given that Aubone could rent a large house in a fashionable part of Newcastle so close to the river, reinforces he, too, had a healthy income.
Many considered Aubone's daughter Bessie a great beauty, and she had several suitors. Aubone was keen that any future husband would be able to look after his daughter 'in the style to which she had become accustomed', and as was the way back then, a final decision on who that man might be would fall to Aubone, not Bessie.
Aubone favoured Walter Blackett, the then so-called 'King of Newcastle' (a title that interestingly befell Kevin Keegan, the NUFC manager, some two hundred years later). Walter was, in fact, a baronet and MP for Newcastle with massive estates to his name. On paper, he was a good catch, except he was 46 years older than Bessie.
Bessie's father must have been a little kinder than most fathers of that time in that he didn't rush Bessie into accepting a proposal. Instead, he let her leave to live with relatives in London for a while so she could think things through.
What Aubone didn't know was that Bessie had fallen in love with John Scott, the son of William Scott, a Newcastle coal merchant. Still a lucrative profession, but not of the standing of a Baronet. Aubone also didn't realise that letting Bessie travel to London allowed her to progress her romance with John, who happened to be at university there.
On Bessie's return and discovering her 'association' with John, Bessie's parents were not pleased. This romance looked doomed to fail.
But the young couple were an enterprising pair. On the night of 18 November 1772, John, with the aid of a willing accomplice, brought a ladder to the house from which Bessie descended from a first-floor window. The couple knew that the discovery of Bessie's absence would not take long, but instead of galloping off into the night, they timed the escape from the house so that they could mount the night coach to Scotland. It was not long before the 'hue and cry', but none of the pursuers thought to check the regular coach as it steadily made its way north.
Once over the Scottish border, Bessie and John could marry as the age of consent was lower in Scotland than in England.
When news of the marriage reached both sets of parents, neither were happy. John's father was unhappy not with his son's choice of bride but with the manner of the marriage as he thought it would blight John's chances for a successful career as a lawyer. In Bessie's parents' case, it was her choice of a partner for life with dubious prospects, with which they were unhappy.
It led to a public argument between the two fathers. John's father was now reconciling himself to his son's decision, so he tried to convince Bessie's father to do the same. Aubone was a little slower to accept the marriage, but realising his daughter was happy, he eventually welcomed the couple back. But only after a blessing of their wedding in what was then St Nicholas Church (it was yet to become a cathedral.)
So, it's a love story that did end happily ever after for the couple. John Scott became Lord Chancellor of England and the 1st Earl of Eldon. However, that ardent young man so much in love, came in later life to fall under the dislike of many in England and even gets a mention in Shelley's 'Mask of Anarchy'. The poem that commemorates the dead and injured in the Peterloo massacre, for which Shelley felt the then Government of England were responsible,
".. Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to millstones as they fell;.."
But back to the house, and while it now carries Bessie's name it had many more owners after her father. Sadly, it fell slowly into disrepair, and by the mid-1800s, it had lost its grand status. It was, however, one of the few quayside properties to survive the Great Fire of Newcastle of 1854, after which there was a succession of different business owners: corn merchants, chemists, and grocers, as well as offering two 'cocoa rooms'. The latter, designed to provide workers with an alternative 'refreshment' to alcohol, sold cocoa, coffee and tea.
By the early 20th Century, the building was supposedly a Seamen's Mission. But few seafarers took advantage of it as it was now no more than a ruin. Then John Vereker (later Viscount Gort) stepped in and bought the place to restore it to its 18th-century glory. He did so because his wife Corinne was a descendant of the Surtees family.
The work took six years. However, only some of the interiors you see today are from the original house. John salvaged items from other 18th-century houses that were being demolished. In some ways, like many old buildings we see today, it is a bit of a 'Triggers Broom'. But doing the restoration with much love and care means the beautiful result gives the visitor a realistic appreciation of how it would have looked to Bessie.
Conducting the renovation work on the internal rooms and th oak panelling that covers the walls, decorative plaster ceiling, banks of windows and elegant chimneypieces, with so much care means it's almost impossible to distinguish the original from the 'new'. Also, the magnificent 17th-century fireplaces were rediscovered following the removal of the brickwork that covered them. One of those fireplaces carries the date 1657, the three-castle crest of Newcastle and the arms of the two families who lived in the house at that time. The Cock family and the Davison family (I mentioned a later descendent Thomas Davison earlier). There is also the crest of the Merchant Adventurers. The belief is that the main staircase within the house is also original, although strengthened over the years.
In 1978, Tyne and Wear Council bought the property from the Gort estate. The council was then responsible for maintaining the building before its ultimate purchase by English Heritage. A glistening jewel of history nestled beside the banks of the Tyne and an 'advent calendar' door through which I'm glad I passed.
Thanks Lynn and yes, I'll start doing that - I noticed in 'Bump' I also reference another earlier piece ...
Fascinating 'house through time' read Harry. And what a fascinating link with Peterloo.