Snow Angels

Travel Guide

Newcastle 1890s

This is the city that Elizabeth  loves and knows so well. She takes us back to the glory days of shipbuilding. The city is evoked in many ways: from the shipbuilding heritage, to the community spirit, the rugged coastline and the family connections. The author herself was born here and still lives in Durham

Jesmond

They lived in Jesmond, on of the most prosperous areas of Newcastle, in a bit semi-detached village not far from the cricket ground

Ship building

William Collingwood was the biggest shipbuilder on the tyne. They sit at the top of Newcastle society but the wife, charlotte sits there in a way that Abbey‘s mother describes like “A fairy with a Christmas tree suck up her arse”

Surtees house

Worth a visit as Charlotte hails from a branch of this family. This is the house where Bessie Surtees lived and she eloped from a window in this very house back in 1772

She eloped with John Scott, a coal merchant’s son who Bessie’s father did not approve of as Bessie was from a prominent family. Ironically, John later became a prominent local and national figure whose name is still well known across the region.

Northumberland – Bamburgh House

Abby and her father drive out to the mansions which William Collingwood had built years earlier when he became rich.

“Abby did not think about the Northumberland countryside; she was used to the big farms and wide fields. Castles were common place here, the  kind of fortifications which had helped top keep out the Picts and Scots and Border reivers at different times”

London

The London scene centres around Abby’s new house in Mayfair, but the call of Newcastle comes a callin’