Fenwick Terrace, The Grapes Inn

Baillie, in his Impartial History of Newcastle, describes a Mr Dewar's (born 1758) garden of under two acres, where visitors were offered tea, cider and delicious fruits of the season. He had bought the land with Messrs Anderson and Atkinson in 1805 from a J.B. Coulson. Mr Dewar died in 1818, but his wife Mary continued the fruit garden business. In 1822 she was granted an alehouse cognizance for the Rosetree in Jesmond. Indeed, Thomas Oliver's directory of 1833/4 lists Mary Dewar as "gardener and victualer of the Rosetree, Jesmond". The 1851 census lists James Dewar as occupier of the Grapes Inn and public gardens. In 1864 James Robert Dewar sold the Grapes Inn and nursery gardens to Collingwood Forster Jackson who built Orchard House and Fenwick Terrace on the site. "A Peep at Newcastle in the 50s" says that the Grapes Inn was in the middle of Fenwick Terrace. Opposite the inn were several small huts and sheds with trestle tables and clay ends for quoits. The inn sold nut brown ale and strawberries and cream with tea. Mr Dewar provided private houses with preserving fruit and had a seed shop in Grey Street {based on research by Mr Stan Livingstone}.