“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. [Page heading: ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD] On August 27 Mrs. S. Montagu wrote to young Tom Lyttelton a long letter describing the country round Newcastle.