Taking a Tour of a Tudor Hall with Matthew Wainwright

This week is a very special one for me, because my new book, ‘Through Water and Fire’, was released on 31st October. It’s always exciting to have a new book out, and to watch it find its way into the hands of readers.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I want to talk a bit about the setting for the story. It takes place in the Tudor period – during the reign of King Henry VIII – and it’s mostly set in a grand manor house or hall, which I’ve called Lockwood Hall.

Lockwood Hall is fictional – I made it up – but it’s based on a very real place called Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. It’s quite a famous Tudor manor house, and brilliantly preserved. If you go there today you’ll find parts of it looking much as they would have 500 years ago - and I definitely recommend you visit if you can!

Haddon Hall, near Bakewell, Derbyshire (Image: Rene Cortin, Wikimedia Commons)

When I was researching the book I looked at a lot of photographs of Haddon Hall, and planned out where various parts of the story would happen (in my version, Lockwood Hall). My main character, Grace, is a visitor to the hall, so there was plenty of opportunity for her to find her way around and explore the various nooks and crannies along with the reader.

Here’s how I describe Lockwood Hall the first time Grace sees it:

“The Hall was vast; hardly a house at all, but more like a small village, with a dozen halls and buildings sprawled over half an acre and a high wall running all the way around. Tall roofs bristled with chimneys, red brick shone ruddy in the sunlight, and rows of glazed windows flashed and gleamed.”

You’ll notice I’ve picked out three distinctive features of these great Tudor houses:

1. Brick walls. Go to any Tudor palace from the time of Henry VIII (such as Hampton Court Palace) and you’ll see they were beginning to be made of bricks rather than stone. Haddon Hall is a mixture of the two, as it was built in the late medieval period, just before the Tudor period.

Hampton Court Palace (Image: DiscoA340, Wikimedia Commons)

2. Chimneys. Tudor palaces were famous for the number of fireplaces, each one served by a chimney. Fireplaces replaced the open hearth, and were more efficient and safer. Again, look at Hampton Court palace and you’ll see just how it ‘bristles’ with chimneys!

3. Glazed windows. Glass windows were still very much for the rich, and tended to be ‘mullioned’ – this means the panes of glass were very small, and joined together with strips of lead, often in a diamond shape. Poorer people still had open windows without any glass in them, and would have shutters that could be closed for warmth and privacy. Lockwood Hall also has stained glass windows in its main hall, which you would usually find in churches.

I think I’ve also made Lockwood Hall much larger than the real-life Haddon Hall – but I like to think that this is how it appears to Grace rather than it being the reality! We all know how big and confusing large buildings can seem on our first visit.

Here are some of the places that Grace comes across in the story, and the kinds of things that would have happened there.

Courtyard

Haddon Hall lower courtyard and front door. (Image: Rob Bendall, Wikimedia Commons)

In Lockwood Hall, the courtyard is the hub of all outdoor activity. It’s where visitors are received and groups of people prepare to ride out to hunt or visit local towns. Only the wealthiest Tudor families had enclosed courtyards – many manor houses were built in an E or H shape, with open spaces to the front or back.

Houses would have been self-sufficient, with everything the family needed provided on-site. This meant not just cooks and kitchens, but a blacksmith, a carpenter (or two), farriers (who took care of the horses’ feet specifically), dairy workers, launderers and more, all amounting to a small army of servants who kept the house and the family going.

In Lockwood Hall I’ve placed these trades around what is called the Lower Courtyard. This is probably a bit unrealistic, as the family wouldn’t want important visitors to be confronted by the sight of chickens being plucked! But it gives the house a real sense of life, so I’ve used some artistic licence.

Great Hall

Christmas revels in Haddon Hall (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Through the huge front door is a small antechamber (literally a ‘before-room’) where guests might wait to see the lord of the manor. Just off the antechamber is the Great Hall.

Coming out of the medieval period, the hall was still the absolute heart of any great Tudor home. This was where most of the life of the house took place: servants ate and even slept here, visitors were received and entertained, and the enormous room was filled with people and activity from dawn until dusk.

Haddon Hall Great Hall today (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

In smaller houses floors were of packed earth; in the case of Lockwood Hall it is stone. Rush mats were laid down for warmth and cleanliness, like a huge, stiff carpet laid down in sections. Trestle tables could be put out and cleared away quickly, along with benches and stools for guests to sit on and eat. Tapestries hung from the walls provided insulation and a riot of colour. An enormous fireplace would have provided warmth (along with a considerable fire hazard!)

Haddon Hall Great Hall fireplace (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Much of the action in the book takes place in the Great Hall – there are feasts, celebrations, homecomings, and even some hostage-holding!

Parlour

Haddon Hall parlour (Image: Elliott Brown, Wikimedia Commons)

Just off the Great Hall is a smaller room called the parlour. This is where the family would have received visitors more privately, and sometimes have eaten their meals together away from the noise and bustle of the hall.

The parlour in Lockwood Hall (as in Haddon Hall) is wood-panelled, with a generous fireplace. It would have been a warm and comfortable place to sit in the long winter evenings!

Haddon Hall, two carved figures in the parlour (Image: Michael Garlick, Wikimedia Commons)

It’s in this parlour that Grace first meets the Lockwood family – her aunt and cousins. She returns later in the book for two more important confrontations, where she is faced with a choice each time: betray someone else to save her skin, or stay loyal and end up in trouble or worse!

Chapel

Haddon Hall chapel (Image: John Salmon, Wikimedia Commons)

Back out the front door and across the courtyard is the chapel. Religion was the lifeblood of Tudor existence – everyone believed in God (to a greater or lesser extent) and everyone went to church. Rich families would have their own chapel for private worship, and for their staff and servants to use to take the mass – bread and wine that represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ (and which most people believed became the actual flesh and blood of Jesus by a miracle called ‘transubstantiation’ – try saying that seven times fast!)

At the time my book is set – 1527 — religion was undergoing enormous upheavals all across Europe. A movement that became known as the Reformation was underway, in which people were beginning to question the absolute authority of the Roman Catholic church, and instead turning to their own reading of the Bible to understand how God wanted them to lead their lives.

Martin Luther protesting against Catholic teaching, 1517 (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

This was a monumental change, and it was enabled by the translation of the Bible into the common languages that people read at the time: German, French, English and others. Until that time, in England, people had only ever had access to the Bible in Latin, and had relied on the priests and other church officials to explain it to them. Some people had translated the Bible into English around a hundred years before, but the practice had been outlawed and many of those Bibles burned.

Bibles being burned, from 'Foxe's Book of Martyrs' (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

In 1527, owning an English Bible – or even just reading one – was still illegal, and people who did were at risk of being arrested and executed for heresy and treason. The Lockwood family in my book are Reformation supporters, and so (to the surprise of Grace) they hold their worship services in English rather than Latin – that is, until a certain guest turns up …

Those are just some of the locations that feature in ‘Through Water and Fire’. There’s also a tense confrontation in a garden, a shocking slap in a bedroom, and a secret tunnel leading to a very mysterious location – but I don’t have time to go into that now. You’ll just have to read the book!

Writing challenge

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about some of the places in a Tudor house. I really enjoyed travelling through the hall in my mind and deciding what would happen where.

For your writing challenge this week I want you to do the same! You have two choices:

1. Download the map of Lockwood Hall, and plan out your own story of someone arriving at the house and discovering a thrilling secret. Maybe someone has got their hands on an illegal English Bible and is on the run from the law! Think what the purpose of each of the locations was, and plan your story around that.

Lockwood Hall. Right-click on the image to download and print it. (Image: Noami Berry, Wakeman Trust)

2. Draw a map of a building you know well. It could be your home, or your school. Plan out a story that takes place in every room. Think about what is in each room that you could use as part of the story. Maybe even add a secret passage of your own …!

Enjoy your writing challenge, and happy Time Tunnelling!

About the author

Matthew Wainwright is an author of children's historical fiction, and a member of the Time Tunnellers. His first book, 'Out of the Smoke' is set in Victorian London and was inspired by the work of Lord Shaftesbury with chimney sweeps and street gangs. His second book, 'Through Water and Fire', is set in Tudor England and features Anne Boleyn and the English Reformation.

For more information on Matthew and his books, visit his website: matthewwainwright.co.uk

You can buy 'Through Water and Fire' online, or from your local bookshop. Buy here.

The Grim Reaper - a history by Jenni Spangler

 

I was always one of the spooky kids – my bedtime reading was filled with ghost stories and my teenage fashion choices leaned towards goth. My mum took me exploring in graveyards and my uncles gave me books on poltergeists and real life ghost hunters. Maybe it was inevitable that I’d write a book with death front and centre.

Valentine Crow and Mr Death is about a foundling boy who, due to a clerical error, is apprenticed to the Grim Reaper. The challenge was finding a narrative about death that was the right sort of spooky for middle grade readers.

It was daunting. I was writing during a pandemic, watching my own children learn about death in a scary and sudden way. I didn’t want to sugar coat things – kids can see right through that – but I also didn’t want to terrify anyone.

We’re not very good at talking about Death in our culture – we distance ourselves from it, and it’s taboo to talk about in many circles. But for as long as we’ve been telling stories, we’ve been telling stories about death. We need stories to get our heads round the stark truth: one day, we won’t be here any more. As simple and as incomprehensible as that.

I read a lot of traditional folk tales in my research and found that stories about death tend to have two key messages – firstly that death is inevitable and necessary, and secondly that everyone is equal in death.

The Three Dead, from the Taymouth Hours, 14^th century

One of my favourites – which I borrowed to create a character in Valentine Crow – is ‘Mother Misery’. An old woman tricks Death into climbing an enchanted fruit tree which traps him in its branches. Initially her neighbours are pleased but over time they begin to suffer, as the very sick and old can no longer pass on to the afterlife. She lets him down only once he promises never to come for her, which is why we will always have misery in the world.

Another story tells of a young man who imprisons death to save his mother. But when he tries to cook their supper, he can neither pick vegetables nor kill a chicken, as animals and plants can no longer die. There’s a strange sort of comfort in these tales, because however dark they get (and some of them get VERY dark) they offer us a ‘why’ for death.

Illustration by John B Gruelle, of the story
‘Godfather Death’, Grimms Fairy Tales 1914

Turning death into a character scales it down to something easier to understand – once it has a face and a voice, it’s something we can interact with, bargain with, rail against.

The earliest depiction of death as a cloaked skeleton carrying a scythe was in the 14^th century, as the black death swept through Europe and cut down victims swiftly and indiscriminately, as a farmer cuts down a field of wheat at harvest time. The name ‘The Grim Reaper’ came much later, in 1847, and both name and image have stuck with us as the instantly recognisable figure of death.

Illustration by Noel le Mire of Death as a skeleton

with a scythe, from “la mort et le mourant”

At around the same time a motif called the ‘danse macabre’ became popular in medieval art. Grinning skeletons dance hand in hand with living people – kings, bishops and beggars alike - leading them merrily towards their demise. It works as a comfort to the poor and a warning to rich: whatever your status in life, we’re all going to the same place in the end.

 These are often surprisingly playful and comical images, and I love them for that. They’re not (only) an expression of the terror of death, but also evidence of dark humour in the face of unpleasant reality. The urge to take something ugly and scary and turn it into art and laughter.

Illustration of the Danse Macabre from the Nuremberg

Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514)

It’s still with us, in our zombie movies and haunted house rides and on Halloween, when we dress our precious children up as ghosts and skeletons and ply them with sugary treats. An acknowledgment of death, and a defiance of it: we see you there, reaper, but we’re going to celebrate anyway.

Writing challenge – The Grim Reaper is a personification of death. Create a personification of a different abstract idea or concept (hope, truth, power etc). Think about how they might look, speak and move and how they might interact with other characters.

Jenni Spangler is the author of The Incredible Talking Machine, The Vanishing Trick and Valentine Crow and Mr Death.

Theatre school drop out, ex-999 operator and occasional forklift driver, Jenni writes children’s books with a magical twist. She loves to take real and familiar places and events and add a layer of mystery and hocus-pocus.

She was part of the first year of the ‘WriteMentor’ scheme, mentored by Lindsay Galvin, author of ‘The Secret Deep’. As well as her magical middle grade novels, Jenni writes short contemporary YA stories for reluctant and struggling readers, including Torn and Wanted for Badger Learning. Jenni has an Open University degree in English Language and Literature, a 500 metre swimming badge and a great recipe for chocolate brownies. She lives in Staffordshire with her husband and two children. She loves old photographs, picture books and tea, but is wary of manhole covers following an unfortunate incident. 

You can find out more about Jenni and her books at www.jennispangler.com and follow her on twitter and instagram

Guest Time Tunneller Lindsay Littleson on Travelling in 3rd Class on TITANIC

 

Hi I’m Lindsay Littleson and I’m the author of The Titanic Detective Agency. One of the main characters in the novel is Johan Cervin Svennson a 14 year old Swedish boy who was travelling alone in 3rd Class on the ship.

I had to do a lot of research for The Titanic Detective Agency and some of that research involved finding out what it was like to be a 3rd Class passenger on RMS Titanic. For example, what were the cabins like, did they have enough to eat, what was there to do on board ship and what were the disadvantages of being in third class when the ship started to sink? In most other ships at the time, third class passengers were known as ‘steerage’ and the passengers often slept in large dormitories in very basic, uncomfortable conditions. But on Titanic, the passengers in 3rd Class slept in proper cabins, some 2-berth, others 4 or more.

The cabins were located on the lower decks, at the ends of the ship where engine noise was an issue. The beds had White Star bed linen and some of the cabins even had washbasins. Unlike in 1st and 2nd Class, the 3rd Class toilets were self -flushing on Titanic. This was because the designers were concerned that the passengers wouldn’t know how to work a flushing toilet. There were only 2 baths for over 700 3rd Class passengers. There was a large dining room where passengers could eat together. While it was nowhere near as luxurious as the dining areas in first class, the tables had white linen cloths and the room was spotlessly clean and bright. The passengers could choose what they wanted to eat from menus. They could have porridge and bread and marmalade for breakfast, soup and roast beef with boiled potatoes for lunch and cold meats and cheese with bread for their tea. It wasn’t fancy, but the food available on Titanic was in stark contrast to conditions on other ships, where often steerage passengers had to bring enough food of their own to last the entire voyage.

The third class passengers had a common room with a piano where they could gather to chat and socialise. On the night of the sinking a party was held there, where passengers played instruments and danced together. The party ended about 10 o’clock. An hour later, Titanic hit an ice-berg and started to sink. 61 children aged 14 and under died in the Titanic disaster. 2 were young crew members. The rest were almost all 3rd Class passengers. 3rd Class passengers had several major disadvantages during the sinking. Many spoke languages other than English, and that night all instructions were being shouted in English. The lifeboats were located on the Boat Deck and there had been no lifeboat drills to show passengers how they should get there in the event of an emergency. To get to the Boat Deck the 3rd Class passengers had to access 1st and 2nd Class areas that they’d previously been told not to enter. Some were told by stewards to stay in the cabins and await further instructions, which never came. The high locked gates shown in the Titanic movie are there for dramatic effect -the gates between the Aft well deck where 3rd class passengers gathered and the stairs to the boat deck were only waist high and even if they were locked, could easily be clambered over. But many passengers didn’t realise the terrible danger they were in until it was too late and most of the lifeboats had already been lowered. Passengers like Frederick and Augusta Goodwin, who were travelling in 3rd Class on Titanic with their six children. Tragically, the whole family died in the sinking. The body of the Unknown Child, buried in Halifax Cemetery after the Titanic disaster, was finally identified as little Sidney Goodwin in 2007.

WRITING CHALLENGE Write a postcard from 3rd Class passenger Johan to his mother in Sweden on the first day of the voyage. Think about images and font style on the front of Titanic postcards from that time and use them for inspiration.

Describe • The 3rd class cabin. • Johan’s first meal on board Titanic • How he is feeling about leaving his mother and four little brothers in Sweden

Lindsay Littleson is a children’s author living in East Renfrewshire, Scotland.

She is the author of Guardians of the Wild Unicorns, a middle-grade novel starring the unicorns of mythology and legend.  Another of her novels is The Titanic Detective Agency, a fresh retelling of the tragedy with a Scottish twist.  Secrets of the Last Merfolk came out in 2021 with Floris Books and The Rewilders and Euro Spies have both been recently published by Cranachan Books.

Her first children’s book, The Mixed Up Summer of Lily McLean, won the 2014 Kelpies Prize and is published by Floris Books.
The sequel to The Mixed Up Summer, The Awkward Autumn of Lily McLean, was published in March 2017 and A Pattern of Secrets, a Victorian mystery set in Paisley, was published by the fabulous Cranachan Books in 2018.

Follow Lindsay on twitter @ljlittleson

Pirates! by Susan Brownrigg

My book Kintana and the Captain's Curse is inspired by the 'Golden Age of Piracy' between the 1650s and the 1730s. Many people associate pirates with the Caribbean because of the famous theme park ride and film series - but did you know they also inhabited a small island off the coast of Madagascar!

Ile Sainte Marie - or Nosy Boraha in Malagasy - was home to 1500 pirates at the height of the golden age, and some may even have been buried on the island as the cemetery features headstones engraved with skulls and crossbones!

Pirate cemetery, Ile Sainte Marie, Madagascar

Pirates who stayed on the island include David Williams, Thomas White, John Every, Thomas Tew and best known William Kidd - who inspired the plot of my book.

William Kidd

William Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1655. He was employed as a pirate hunter but apparently wasn't very good at finding pirates so his crew grew mutinous and forced him to turn pirate! 

Kidd and his crew captured a ship called Quedah Merchant along with her cargo of silks, opium, iron and saltpeter (a vital ingredient in gunpowder) and renamed her The Adventure.

Unfortunately they soon learned that the ship was rotten and leaky so they stripped her of anything valuable then deliberately scuttled (sunk) her off the coast of Madagascar.

Later, Kidd asked the English authorities for a pardon, blaming his crew for his actions. This was granted and he sailed to Boston, America but on arrival he was arrested! Kidd was taken back to England to face trial. The evidence was heard really quickly and he was found guilty of several counts of piracy and of murdering one of his crew.

He was sentenced to hang. On the day of his execution the rope snapped on the first attempt - but the second try was successful. Kidd's body was placed in a gibbet and was placed at the entrance to the River Thames as a warning to others not to turn pirate.

Treasure hunters and divers continue to search around Ile Saint Marie for the wreck of Kidd's ship and any of his booty!

Captain Kidd with his buried treasure
from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates

The second pirate who inspired by book is Blackbeard! Originally from Bristol, Blackbeard's real name is traditionally reported to be Edward Teach although some researchers think it may actually have been Edward Thatch!

His nickname came from his long black beard, which may have reached down to his waist! He used to tie tapers into his beard and hair and light them so smoke would billow around his head during attacks on other ships - making him look terrifying!

In 1718 Blackbeard had accrued a flotilla of ships and he used them to blockade the harbour near Charlestown and during one week he attacked nine ships as they left, and plundered them.

The local governor sent Lieutenant Maynard to capture Blackbeard. Maynard told his men to hide below deck, so when Blackbeard and his crew came on board they ambushed them.

In a man-to-man battle with Maynard, Blackbeard received five gunshots and 25 stab wounds, before he died from his injuries.

After his death, his head was chopped off and hung from his ship as a warning to others not to become pirates. A story began to spread that his headless body had been swimming around his ship looking for his head!

This woodcut from 1725 featured in Charles Johnson's book A General History of the Pyrates features the famous Jolly Roger flag and shows a skull and crossbones.

Charles Johnson's book included lots of stories that may or may not have been true, but which had a big influence on how people think of pirates ever since. It particularly inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write Treasure Island and J M Barrie to write Peter Pan - two very successful pirate books for children.

Individual pirates designed their own flag. Blackbeard was said to use this flag featuring a horned skeleton - perhaps representing the devil - spearing a heart. In his hand is an hour glass. The message seems to be something like Your time is up! You're going to die!

Among the crew named as working for Blackbeard was a pirate called Israel Hands. Israel features in Treasure Island and is thought to be based on a real person.

Israel Hands depicted by Howard Pyle

He is the third pirate who inspired my book. It is said that Blackbeard shot Israel Hands in the knee and when asked why, the captain said "if he did not now and then kill one of them they would forget who he was!"

An injury like that, may well have led to an amputation. Israel was said to have later become a beggar in London - though in my book I have given him a reprieve and he is running a pet shop on Ile Sainte Marie with his daughter Kintana.

WRITING CHALLENGE: A lot of pirate stories feature a hunt for buried treasure - with clues on a map. Can you design your own map? What features will you include? A harbour, a fortress, secret caves? Don't forget to mark a big X where your treasure is located. You can use your map to plot out your own treasure hunt adventure!

Susan Brownrigg is the author of Kintana and the Captain's Curse, and the Gracie Fairshaw mystery series. (Uclan Publishing)

Find out more at susanbrownrigg.com

Recycling, Victorian Style: Sweetheart Brooches by Barbara Henderson

Remember that time when we…? We often share precious memories, don’t we? We love to look back on times, people and places which are special to us, or which meant something at the time. Why else would there be such a thriving souvenir trade in tourist hotspots, for example? And photographs fulfil the same purpose – they help us hold on to things and events in the past which we may otherwise forget. The Victorian construction workers who built the first significant steel bridge across the waters of the Firt of Forth were no different – only, they rarely had photography at their disposal. If they wanted a memento of their time spent working on the bridge, they had to be ingenious and thrifty – and they came up with a fantastic solution.

The Forth Bridge is constructed from shaped and cut steel, riveted together by at least 6.5 million rivets. But this sort of construction effort did not come about without waste – there would have been many steel offcuts lying around in the famous workshops on the hillside. The workers found a good use for some of this waste material: jewellery for their loved ones.

Yes, I know it sounds a little strange: taking bits of a bridge and turning the waste material into something to be admired and stared at? The resulting brooches and pendants were often simple in shape, cut using the tools of the steel trade, and polished until they resembled the more precious silver. In addition to cutting, there were skilled engravers on site who knew how to add words and decoration to such jewellery. Imagine your delight if you were a girl, courted by such a bridge worker (“brigger” was the word used for the workforce)! You may find your own name engraved on the brooch, or perhaps the name of your admirer who gave you the piece. Many of the men took great pride in being involved in such important work, and they wanted to shout about it!

Occasionally, the offcuts were worked on by a skilled jeweller instead of the workmen themselves, resulting in a more ornamental, detailed design.

I love that there are still items of jewellery made from bridge offcuts in drawers and attics around the country. If only we knew their stories!

Writing challenge: Think of a person who is special to you: a parent, a friend, a relative… Now think of a place that means something to both of you. Design a brooch or pendant, containing words – what would it say? Now write a card which would accompany such a beautiful and meaningful gift. Barbara Henderson is a Time Tunneller. Her latest historical adventure is Rivet Boy, set during the construction of the Forth Bridge.

Historic beasts and where to find them by Ally Sherrick

Since my first published children’s book, Black Powder, I have always included an heroic – and sometimes downright mischievous – animal sidekick in my stories. In Black Powder, about two children caught up in the Gunpowder Plot, my hero Tom has a white pet mouse called Jago. Since then I’ve included a dog, a raven, a monkey and a wolf in other stories. And I’ve created two new animal heroes in my current historical work in progress, though I’m not quite ready to reveal their identities yet!

An early favourite: Dippy the dinosaur in his original home at the Natural History Museum, London

My own earliest memorable brush with an historic beast was a visit to the Natural History Museum in London and a meeting with Dippy the Diplodocus, who in the past few years has been making a grand tour of the UK and thrilling visitors young and old wherever he – or she? – lands. Dippy, as I later discovered, is a composite of many rather than one individual dinosaur’s bones, and also a cast taken from the ‘original’ Dippy housed in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, USA. But whatever its origins, it still has the power to excite young imaginations, as it did for me.

Other actual remains of creatures from the past which have intrigued and wowed me in equal measure over the years include the mummified cats on display in the Egyptian galleries at the British Museum, a plaster-cast taken from the remains of a dog caught in the ash flow of the devastating eruption of Vesuvius at Pompeii complete with its collar, and the skeletons of eleven horses buried with their presumed royal owner in a Viking-age ship burial at Ladby in Denmark in the early tenth century.

The Ladby Viking Ship which contained the remains of eleven dead horses

In addition to the remains of real live – or perhaps we should say ‘real dead’ – creatures that have come down to us from the past, the evidence of people’s passion for, and fear of animals throughout time is all around us, and across all cultures too.
For example, I love this mosaic of beasts fighting in the gladiatorial arena from a Roman villa in Cyprus. In fact, I used such scenes as part of my research into my Roman-set story Vita and the Gladiator in which my heroes, Vita and Brea are pitted against their own fierce animal combatants.

Photo: Catherine Randall

Medieval gargoyles on the outside of church towers and walls are also a favourite. I always look up before going inside to see if I can spot these strange, often nightmarish creatures created by medieval stonemasons, including this one of a devil or imp on St Peter’s Church in the Cotswolds town of Winchcombe. The word ‘gargoyle’ comes from the Old French word gargouille, meaning ‘throat’ and describes their practical function as waterspouts diverting rainwater from the roof. But historians believed they may also have served as charms to keep evil spirits away, or as a method of warning parishioners against committing sins.

Gargoyle of imp or devil on St. Peter's Church, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire

And of course real and fantastical animals are often included in tapestries, on coats of arms and in sculptures and paintings too. For example I was lucky enough a little while ago to see the exquisite Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This series of wall-hangings was woven in around 1500, probably in the South Netherlands, and is believed to have been a wedding gift destined to be hung in the happy couple’s bedchamber. The tapestries tell the story of the taming of the mythical unicorn – whose horn was believed to have magical properties to detect poison and purify water. But they also depict many recognisable real-life birds and animals including pheasants, ducks, rabbits and lions.

And on another holiday, this time to the city of Bangkok in Thailand, I visited the beautiful Buddhist temple of Wat Arun, home to many amazing sculptures including this one of the deity Indra on his three-headed elephant.

Meanwhile, the image of a monkey in a painting of Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of the Tudor King Henry VIII, helped inspire the creation of Pepin the monkey in my own story The Queen’s Fool. I knew that monkeys in those times were kept as pets by the nobility in grand houses in England and Europe. But they would have seemed strange to ordinary folk, especially my hero, Cat Sparrow, who has grown up in the enclosed world of a nunnery. When she first encounters him, she mistakes Pepin – or Pippo as she prefers to call him – for some kind of giant spider. Understandable if you’ve never seen a monkey before!

Animals also make a frequent appearance on items of jewellery, clothing and even armour throughout history. While studying medieval history at university I learned about the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. I was fascinated to discover that many of the treasures buried with King Raedwald whose monument it’s believed to be, depicted creatures both real and imaginary. I’ve talked in another TimeTunnellers post about the Anglo-Saxons’ passion for dragons, the most striking examples of which are on the warrior’s helmet included in the burial. But there were also stunning depictions of wolves and eagles – two of the so-called ‘beasts of battle’ – on other items including the king’s purse and shield mounts.

The Sutton Hoo helmet with a pair of decorative dragons - spot a set of wings over the eyebrows

And from a completely different culture - South America this time - this beautiful gold frog pendant. It was made somewhere between the 8th and 16th centuries and may have been a totem, a sacred object representative of a spirit being with supernatural powers.

But perhaps my favourite representations of animals and birds in the past are in the illuminated manuscripts produced by monks in the scriptoria, or writing rooms, of medieval monasteries. The illustrations included in the copies of holy texts they made – including the beautiful early 15th century Sherborne Missal now in the British Library – were often both a celebration of the natural world and a very human testament to their vivid imaginations and colourful sense of humour. A form of escape perhaps from the bleak conditions they were working in sat at their desks in those cold and draughty monastery buildings.

I love the little snail perched on the gloved hand of the hare in this illumination

Best of all, are the illuminated texts known as bestiaries. A bestiary was a compendium of beasts, with illustrations of animals and an accompanying description of their natural history and which usually included a moral message for the reader – mainly monks and clerics – drawn from the beast’s assigned religious meaning. They were first produced by ancient Greek scholars, but versions of them became increasingly popular during the Middle Ages, especially in England and France.

Pages from the Aberdeen Bestiary - created in England circa 1200

Bestiaries included both beasts that existed – for example pelicans, lions, bears and wild boars – and ones – spoiler alert! – such as griffins, unicorns, dragons and basilisks that didn’t. But no distinction about whether they were real or imagined was made in the entry.

A Pelican feeding her young with her own blood. The bird is real but the behaviour is not

There’s some debate among academics today about whether medieval people really believed the more fantastical ones actually existed or else accepted that they had been created for teaching purposes. But either way, many of these amazing beasts have found their way into fantasy stories and films of more modern times including works like Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowlings’ Harry Potter series and its spin-offs to name but a few.

Writing Challenge

Pick your own favourite real-life animal and taking inspiration from imaginary creatures in the past, with a wave of your pen transform it into a fantastical creature to include in your own 21st century bestiary. What sort of additional physical features will you give it to make it suitably weird and wonderful? Where does it live? What does it eat and drink? What sort of noise does it make when it’s happy, or angry? What special powers might it have? Write a few paragraphs describing it. And don’t forget to include a drawing of it too!

 

Ally Sherrick is the award-winning author of stories full of history, mystery and adventure.

BLACK POWDER, her debut novel about a boy caught up in the Gunpowder Plot, won the Historical Association’s Young Quills Award. Other titles include THE BURIED CROWN, a wartime tale with a whiff of Anglo-Saxon myth and magic and THE QUEEN’S FOOL, a story of treachery and treason set at the court of King Henry VIII. Ally’s latest book with Chicken House Books, is VITA AND THE GLADIATOR, the story of a young girl’s fight for justice in the high-stakes world of London’s gladiatorial arena.

For more information about Ally and her books visit www.allysherrick.com You can also follow her on Twitter @ally_sherrick