Bessie Surtees House

About Bessie Surtees House

Bessie Surtees House is two five-storey Newcastle merchants' houses on Sandhill dating from the mid-17th century, one of them with a splendid timber-framed and jettied frontage that makes it among the best surviving Jacobean domestic buildings in the North East. It takes its name from the night in 1772 when Bessie Surtees eloped from a first-floor window here with John Scott, who went on to become Lord Chancellor of England as Lord Eldon. The blue-painted window she climbed out of is still pointed out from the street.

Access has changed, and a good many older guides have not caught up. English Heritage now runs the house as free guided tours on selected dates only, and they must be booked in advance, so the old drop-in weekday opening no longer applies. A donation towards the upkeep is requested. Even when it is closed the exterior is one of the best things to look at on the Quayside, and it stands a minute from the Swing Bridge on the walk between the castle stairs and the Millennium Bridge.

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Free Things to Do in Newcastle City Centre

Newcastle has four free museums and galleries, a Grade I listed covered market, two miles of medieval town wall, a thousand acres of common land and a free organ recital every Monday. Here is what genuinely costs nothing, and what used to be free but is not any more.