House Hunting

Anne here, and no, I’m not looking for a new house for myself. I’m searching for one for my characters. I do it with every book, and because I live so far from the UK I can’t afford to fly to the UK to research every location. And the part of Australia I live in (Victoria) was colonized in the 1830’s which is too late for any buildings to be useful for for my period (Regency, 1811-20)  So my location scouting is mostly done on line, with maps, and with books. And sometimes with a photo taken by a friend in the UK (Thank you CC Coburn). This one I used for the colors in the sky at a particular time of year, not the location.

For my just-finished novel, Marry in Secret, I needed two houses, one a small London house, and the other the country seat of an Earl.

The first one was relatively easy — I really only had to choose the street, because I didn’t want one of the big ultra-expensive fashionable houses, but a smallish house in a smallish street on the edge of Mayfair. 

For London streets I usually use the Richard Horwood map of London or else this one, William Faden’s update of the Horwood plan, because it’s only one year after the date in which this book is set. Both plans have wonderful detail showing the houses, the back yards, the gardens and all kinds of lovely detail.

For the country seat of the earl, I wanted somewhere in Gloucestershire, so I started my search with the region and did an image search for "stately homes" or "historic houses” and Gloucestershire. After that, it’s simply a matter of browsing through lots of lovely pictures and following my instincts; finding images that spark an idea for a scene or simply feel right. 

There are restrictions, of course, nothing Victorian or later, for instance. And I look for useable features, rather than an entire suitable house, because generally an old house will have additions and alterations made in different periods, which I love.

I rarely choose just one house. Because my books are fiction, I’m happy to take a feature from this house, an archway from that, the main hall of another and a maze from somewhere else — combining exteriors and interiors and creating my own unique location.

For instance I loved this very unusual double gatehouse, an archway with a house on either side, and readers will spot a version of it when they read the book. I mostly don’t need completely accurate details — it's more a matter of the atmosphere I’m trying to create.

Some years ago, when I was writing The Perfect Kiss, which has a slight touch of the gothic about it,  I saw the photo of this stone staircase with the shallow indentations made by generations of feet and I knew I had to include it. One of the primary schools I attended as a child had very similarly worn stone steps, and I loved putting my feet into the dips made by generations of children before me. The  worn stone steps in the story gave my heroine the same kind of frisson. 

And when I spotted a photo of a wooden gargoyle, I knew I had to include that, too. If you’re interested in seeing some of the visual inspirations for that story, click here.

I used to print off some of these photos for my story collages, but I haven’t been doing those lately. Sometimes I also need to research things like the flowers and fruits that might be out at the time of my story. I got into trouble once by having lemons growing in Shropshire and was told by a reader that they’d only grow in a greenhouse. It’s always the things I assume I know (and therefore don’t look up) that I make mistakes with. 

Blogs are often a wonderful source of images for inspiration, too. Here's another.

I did say there was nothing here in Melbourne that was suitable for Regency-era research, but that’s not quite true. Some enterprising chap, many years ago, heard that Captain Cook’s parents’ cottage was for sale. He bought it, had it dismantled, popped on a ship, and re-erected in the Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne        

I used it for one of my books, particularly because I had a recently impoverished heroine living in a small country cottage — so the size and style were perfect. I needed to know how my heroine would be able to get a semi-conscious wounded hero up the stairs and into a bed. So I jumped into the car and whizzed down to Cook’s Cottage. And was amazed at the low ceilings and the tiny, narrow beds and sleeping alcoves of the time. You can see them if you click on the link above. If you’ve read that story, (The Virtuous Widow — it's a Christmas story) the layout of my heroine’s cottage is identical to that of Cook’s Cottage.

When I was searching on line for places in Gloucestershire a rhyme from my childhood kept going round and round in my brain. I wonder, do you know it?  
Dr Foster went to Gloucester in a shower of rain
He stepped in a puddle right up to his middle
And . . . . (finish the rhyme ~ hint, it ends with a rhyme for rain)

Do you do any cyber-travelling — just browsing the web for lovely places? If time and cost and difficulty of of travel weren't an issue, where would you travel to?

Comments

[Alison Y]

While reading this, I thought it would be great for someone to draw/paint the houses you have designed. I'll be reading about the double gatehouse, but doubt I would have imagined it as ornate as the picture of it.
The only cyber-traveling I have done was as research for places I was about to visit. After reading this blog, I think I will start doing so as a past-time.
I would love to have a year to spend in the UK. I lived there years ago, when I had little money and 2 very young children. Though I saw a great deal, while showing relatives around, there is so much more I would love to explore. But, revisiting India, Nepal, and never seen Eastern European countries ..... they all call to me.

[Sue McCormick]

I love the way your imagination can build locales by taking a gatehouse here, a stairwell there, and so on. I don't have that type of imagination. But the imagination I do have loves the results I read about in your stories.

[Pamela]

I live in the USA in the state of Ohio. I am fortunate I can drive around locally and get many ideas for locations. My current project is set in SE Pennsylvania in 1777. I was able to find an image online of a farm in Chester County Pennsylvania (Not far from Philadelphia) that still exists from that period to base my heroine's farm upon. I really want to travel there to get the feel of the place and connect with my heroine's sense of place and the hero's sense of difference from his family's seat in Yorkshire, England, but he feels at home in her place. (Sorry, I'm not sure I put that right.) I read all of James Herriot's books when I was young and can gather the feel of wonder he had upon setting up his vet practice in Yorkshire, so that can help fill the hero with nostalgia/homesickness and overcome it with the wonder of the American Wilderness I remember reading from journals of English soldiers during the American Revolution. The thing that keeps me from traveling in person to Philadelphia is a lack of time and money. So I'm with you with web searches and historic research. I, too, have a couple friends in England who may be able to help with the footwork there once I'm ready to share the project with them.

[Quantum]

"and never went there again" LOL
I grew up in Gloucestershire and also used to recite that rhyme. Considering some of the potholes in our country lanes now, the rhyme still has some relevance!

Fascinated to hear that Captain Cook's parents' cottage is now in Melbourne .... America is more often than not the destination for this sort of stuff.

The internet is indeed a vast resource and playground for gathering info. Even for just traveling in the UK we (actually my wife!) do extensive web searches for places of interest. If your book located in Gloucestershire needs a ghost I can recommend Berkeley Castle as suitable. Edward the second was murdered there and walking around even today has a slightly sinister feel to it.
https://great-castles.com/berkeleyghost.php

I'm getting on a bit now but if I could have modern comforts thrown in I would love to take a trip to the moon and observe the earth from space, repeating the life changing experiences of Buz Aldrin and the other astronauts
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2016/07/09/john-glenn-buzz-aldrin-others-recount-life-changing-views-from-space/#73877bf218fd

[Deborah Ivey]

One of my cheapest hobbies is to look at UK upscale realtors to drool at the old stately homes listed for sale. I wod love to be able to visit a late Regency home the was progressive enough to have running water but they hadn't yet moved to hoops.

[Anne Gracie]

Annette, the gatehouse I mention in the new book (and it's really only a passing mention) is not as ornate as the one in the picture. I don't really describe it except to say something like "an ancient gatehouse of unusual design; two houses joined by an ornate arch." It's the person in the gatehouse that matters to the story, not the architecture—and he's a very minor character.

Exploring gorgeous places via the web is such a lovely rabbit-hole. I'm hoping to go to the UK in a year or so —have other priorities here first — but there are too many places I want to visit. I suspect I ought to move there for a year or so. *g*

[Anne Gracie]

Sue, I love building imaginary places from bits and pieces. I'm better at that than I am at describing real details of actual places. Accurate reality ties me down too much — I'm much happier with images and snippets.

I think it was Chekhov who advised writers “to seize upon the little par­tic­u­lars, group­ing them in such a way that, in read­ing, when you shut your eyes you get the picture.” I loved reading that, because it's a bit like how it works for me.

[Anne Gracie]

Pamela, I think some writers are natural "landscape writers" and need to ground themselves in the place of the story. Wench Susanna clearly is, traveling to those locations for each book. I'm also a landscape writer, but the cost and time and discomfort of travel to the UK for me -- 26 hours sitting on a plane is not fun, and that's not counting the before and after bits waiting in airports -- makes it impractical for me.

So we do what we can. Luckily I lived in the UK for a year as a child, and have made a number of trips there over the years. But each book is different, each location and set of characters have a different relationship to the story and usually I don't know what that will be until I'm writing it.

[Anne Gracie]

Yay, you got the rhyme, Quantum. I wondered whether it would only be Brits and aussies who knew it.

It's a strange thing, isn't it, to remove buildings from their native land and natural context and take them to the other side of the world and rebuild them. I think Cook's Cottage is the only example in Australia — at least that I know of. But people have been doing it for centuries, haven't they — Cleopatra's needle(s) lifted from Egypt and reerected in London, New York and Paris, and various Roman and Greek bits and pieces all over.

The moon? Wow. All my claustrophobic instincts shiver at the idea. Show me the moon from a lovely drifting boat on a lake in the mountains and that's much more my style. Though I do confess that I wouldn't mind being cryogenically frozen for my next trip to the UK — as long as I'm guaranteed to wake up with all faculties intact.

[Anne Gracie]

It's one of the pleasures of modern, life, isn't it, Deborah — the fantasy that we could go and live in one of those houses. I'm forever having friends email with images of some glorious old house, saying, "How about here? All we need is for 10 of us to toss in half a million" because of course, we all have that kind of spare change floating around. LOL

[Anne Gracie]

After I read the article you linked to I can see how tempting it might be. I loved this bit: "My photo “Earthrise” points out the beauty of Earth - and its fragility. That little atmospheric thing you and I are enjoying now is nothing more than the skin on an apple around the core."

Beautiful. And prophetic, if you think about how we take the earth so much for granted as something to use and pillage.

[Binnie Syril Braunstein]

Anne-

I was hunting for a house for my heroine in my third book - Baby Love. I didn't have to hunt long: I had driven by the place hundred of times while growing up. The place is an extremely ornate gatehouse that serves as the entrance to a Baltimore mental institution. Cars can be driven through the middle of it (probably carriages, long ago). The name of the sanitarium is Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital. Yes, the same Enoch Pratt is the one who endowed the public library system in Baltimore. The wonderfully ornate gatehouse, which dates back to 1863 always fascinated me, and I used it shamelessly in my book. I've never been inside it, but I imagined that my woodworker heroine, Elizabeth, enjoyed living there. Here is a link to the the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheppard_and_Enoch_Pratt_Hospital. BTW Anne - I loved the story you referred to - The Virtuous Widow. I've had the pleasure of re-reading it more than once. And I was so glad to know that your next book is finished. I've just pre-ordered Marry in Secret.

[Leander Arundel-Brett]

Uncanny that when I read the book I pictured something akin to Captain Cook's cottage here in Melbourne. I was struck by the low ceilings also as I'm quite tall but felt an eerie sense of happiness, love and peace there. Originally English, I have many family homes I would like to share with you that were built by my grandparents and great-grandparents and so on, who date back to William the Conquerer. Perhaps some of my archives may be of use to you. Cheers L.B

[Pamela]

Thanks, Anne. I'm fortunate to have grown up in a family who loved to travel so I can draw on past experiences as a child. I'm also blessed that my love of history and active imagination were nurtured and encouraged by my parents.

As much as I'd love to be a landscape based author most the stories that take shape and light my fancy are often far away from my beautiful Central Ohio home with its four seasons, fair fields, and rolling hills caused by the great glaciers from eons ago. I understand your frustrated-wanderlust, travel to experience a landscape is major fiscal and time commitment. I hate waiting in airports, too, and the older I get, it is harder to recover from the time difference when I fly. Research online and through the books I read is often the best methods for me.

[Annette N]

One of the terrible things about the internet is I fall into it and hours later must pull myself out. I am evidently very weak willed. I will look at one thing, and that leads to another, and before I know it, it is Christmas and I have missed Easter.

On Pinterest I have "Simply Lovely Things" and "Places I Would Like to Be". I have enjoyed finding things and places which make me smile. When I look at everything as a whole, I find that most of my favorites are places and things from an era that is long past.

[Anne Gracie]

Binnie, what a beautiful gatehouse. I would use it too if was remotely in my era. Thanks for your kind comments on my Virtuous Widow — and thanks for preordering Marry In Secret. The cover is not yet finalized, so that black placeholder cover they've used on websites like amazon is quite dramatic-looking, isn't it?

[Anne Gracie]

Leander, yes, I made very close use of Cook's Cottage. It was perfect. I remember my excitement when I visited it and thought, yes, that's where he knocks on her door and collapses, and this is when she drags him in. And I counted the steps she had to get him up, and realized he might bang his head on them . . . etc. So my vague, imaginary generic cottage became that specific one.

There was a Japanese tour visiting at the time and they were most intrigued when I pulled out my tape measure and noted things down.

Your archives sound fascinating.

[Anne Gracie]

Annette, I think the web is an enticing rabbit-warren for most of us. I can spend hours wandering along, looking at stuff and sometimes completely lose track of whatever it was that I originally started out looking for.

Things from the past are more enticing because we tend to paint the past with nostalgia and romance, I suspect. There's a reason why I write historical romance. It comes from the heart.

[Kareni]

What an enjoyable post (and comments, too!). Thanks so much, Anne Gracie.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Kareni, glad you enjoyed the post. As for the comments, it's my contention that we always have the best, most interesting and intelligent mini conversations in our comment stream. *g*