Carry coals to Newcastle:
(idiomatic) A pointless venture, in the sense of sending something to a place where it's made, or where they already have an abundance. 1: 1935: No more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris — attributed to King George V of the United Kingdom, but possibly a joke doing the rounds at the time.
Newcastle Upon Tyne in England was the UK's first coal exporting port and has been well-known as a coal mining centre since the Middle Ages, although much diminished in that regard in recent years. 'Carrying coal to Newcastle' was an archetypally pointless activity - there being plenty there already. Other countries have similar phrases; in German it's 'taking owls to Athens' (the inhabitants of Athens already being thought to have sufficient wisdom).
The article makes the case that the Americanism 'selling ice to an Eskimo', while similar, has a slightly different connotation--that of accomplishing a hard thing not engaging in pointless activity.
Anyway, used in Heaven is Gentle, it refers to whether or not they should buy the 'daily help' tweeds. They decide to go with a frilly bed jacket because giving her tweeds would be like carrying coals to Newcastle...
I'm trying to think of an Americanism that so aptly annexes a city and all I've got is "What Happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
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