Hotel Owner Makes Fascinating Discovery

Scott Carlucci, the hotel owner

 

News reaching us has it that builders renovating a house next door to the Clifton Hotel in South Tyneside came across the papers, which were stuffed inside the chimney breast.

 

Hotel owner Scott Carlucci was left surprised after being handed the pages, which may have been the remains of a book burned by an author in the late 1800s.

 

The bundle, which was covered in soot, appears to be made up of biographies of prominent people living in the area at the end of the 19th centrury.

 

The book

 

It is thought the book was dumped in the fire over a century ago.

 

The pages were uncovered during the renovation of a house in South Tyneside next door to the Clifton Hotel owner by Scott.

 

One collection of papers is about the life of a chemist and councillor called James D Ross, who lived in Jarrow.

 

 

Scott said: "We are expanding the Clifton at the moment and bought next door so we can have more room.

 

"The builders were removing next door's fireplace, so the walls can be knocked through and a new doorway can be created, and that's when they found the letters stuffed up the chimney.

 

"It's impossible to say if they'd been thrown on the fire to be burnt and somehow got stuck there, or perhaps they were put there for safe keeping.

 

"They're very hard to read as the handwriting is so old fashioned and many of the pages are dirty from the soot."

 

Ross ParryScott CarlucciSteeped in history: The hotel is situated in Ocean Road, pictured here in 1930

 

The unknown author charts the life of Mr Ross, who appears to have run a very "well respected" chemist in Ormonde Street, Jarrow.

 

And Mr Ross was "still quite a funny man having been born the year 1868".

 

It is thought the papers were written not long after 1898 because the author refers to Mr Ross as having "recently been elected to the town's council in 1898".

 

Scott said: ''I know the house was built in 1889, and it wasn't turned into a guest house until much, much later, in the 1960s.

 

"l have no idea why the author was writing about this councillor. Perhaps he was doing research for a book.

 

''It would be great to know if there used to be a famous writer living here though, and I'd love it if anyone had any information."