Wide-Angle Wednesday: Jesmond Dene House

Our friends from America who've been visiting the UK for the last couple of weeks (and who stayed with us last weekend) returned to Newcastle today after spending 3 days in York.

This is their last night here before they fly back to the USA tomorrow, and they're staying overnight at Jesmond Dene House Hotel. They kindly invited us to join them at a very civilised "Afternoon Tea" at the hotel which was really lovely.

The hotel, in beautiful Jesmond Dene, is a Grade II listed building which was built in 1822 to a design by John Dobson, a famous northern architect, for Thomas Emerson Headlam - a physician and Mayor of Newcastle in 1837 and 1845. Later in the 19th Century it was owned by Lord Armstrong's business partner Andrew Noble who extended it westwards (on the left of this photo). Following the death of Noble and then his widow the house has had various uses, including as a college, a civil defence establishment, a seminary and a residential school. In 2005, after extensive refurbishment, it opened as a boutique hotel.

As you can see it has lots of windows, so it should fit this week's Widwed theme of "glass", kindly hosted once more by Bobsblips.

It's best viewed large if you've time.

Thanks ever so much to everyone who starred and/or hearted my spooky fly blip yesterday, which is currently sitting on Page 3 of Popular :-))