Forgive us if this seems to be turning into “what we did on our holidays” but it’s tricky because this actually is what we did on our holidays, albeit only a few days. In fact it wasn’t our holidays, it was more of a sconological expedition south of the border where few sconeys have gone before. By now you all know the sort of extraordinary sacrifices we make in order to keep you up to date with sconey news. This is no exception. For this post we had to stay here in Jesmond Dene House. We know, we know but we felt duty bound!

A bit of history

The house was built in the Arts and Crafts style in 1871 by Sir Andrew Noble who worked for Lord William Armstrong … the oligarchs of their time. They became fabulously wealthy through shipping and the manufacture of armaments. It was forever thus. It’s been a hotel since 2005 and has a beautiful setting on the edge of the Dene Burn. Celebrities and Royalty have been entertained here … and now us!

Of course, we were only here for the scones! We had a notion it might be a bit more expensive than our last post from Olivers Bistro Café and we weren’t wrong. We could have sat outside in the spring sunshine but they actually seated us in a cosy little alcove beside a wonderfully warm open fire … fab!  Our lovely chatty waiter was from Venice. We know everything about him: his early life; his career, his children, his failed marriage, we could go on! 

Two baby two

When you order a scone you actually get two and you can pick from a variety they have on offer. We chose fruit and cheese. They came with little bowls of butter and jam as well as a pot of cream and huge linen napkins. They were wonderfully warm and were absolutely delicious. £10 for two scones and coffee but worth every penny. If ever there was a challenger to our benchmark Fonab Castle’s scone, this was it.

Rivet Catcher

We told our Venetian friend that we are going to try the Metro. He looked shocked and said in his Italian accent “No, it’s rubbish“. He went on to elaborate “I’ve been here six years and I’ve only been on it once … and that was enough!” Of course, he was comparing Newcastle to Rome, London and Paris so we weren’t unduly concerned. Undeterred we set off for a station about ten minutes walk from the hotel. An ‘ALL DAY’ ticket was £5 each. This allowed us to travel anywhere we liked, get off and on as many times as we liked and valid for the whole day. We’re loving it already!

Okay, the trains are a bit on the basic side but they rattle along and we did managed to hit 33 of the 60 stations on the system … yes we counted them! We went to the beach in Tynemouth and then, to finish off,  a drink of Rivet Catcher in the Cumberland Arms.

Romance in not dead

Then, because Pat has always wanted to go on a cruise (not,) we went to North Shields and caught the ferry across the Tyne (the Metro ticket does that as well). Only a seven minute cruise but, in the golden evening light, it was very romantic … honest!

Anyone for billiards

It was well and truly dark when we got back to Jesmond Dene House. We decided to have dinner beside another large open fire in the billiard room. No billiards but presumably there must have been at one time!

Looking at us with a fearful expression our waiter friend was keen to know if we had gone on the Metro. When we told him what we had done he was super impressed. He had never heard of anyone doing that before! All we can say is that if you want to get a quick feel for the area and the people you could do a lot worse than take a trip on the Metro.

Dinner was fabulous by the way … a bit pricey for our Scottish pockets but fabulous.

Hero

Our thoughts are with Marina Ovsyannikova, the lady who protested live on Russian television. From totally unknown to worldwide hero in an instant … wow! We dread to think what will happen to her now but fingers crossed she’s okay?

NE2 2EY       tel: 0191 212 3000      Jesmond Dene

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