Littlecote House is a large Elizabethan Country House situated about two miles from the town of Hungerford The original Littlecote House was built in the thirteenth century and the Tudor mansion that followed is famous for the fact that King Henry the Eighth courted the short lived Jane Seymour at the house The present house […]

Leeds Castle is not as you might imagine in Yorkshire but some five miles outside of Maidstone in the county of Kent. The castle gets its name from the village of Leeds which is nearby; this ancient village is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 although it was called Esledes at the time The […]

Brownsover Hall Brownsover Hall is in the village of Brownsover in Warwickshire Brownsover is mentioned in the novel Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), its creator Thomas Hughes (1822-1896) is recorded as writing the famous book in Deal in Kent in a house not far from the Time Ball Tower. The village is near to Rugby home […]

Secret Commonwealth & Thomas of the River both admired Geraldine the fisherman’s daughter To settle their arguments they would engage in literary quizzes with the winner finding her favour Right the one who names the most Irish writers will spend the night with me followed by a delicious kipper breakfast She looked at Secret Commonwealth […]

Those who witnessed the dawn are fading gradually Some remain in small communities under the decorated trees Temperatures are in the nineties Everything is busy but still From my vantage I can hear pan pipes mixed lightly with heavy rock People are dancing near the stones and chanting ancient words Whose meanings was lost over […]

I exist near the crossroads Guarding the two crosses Of the policemen that died This is my eternity  

Hilary Manning Hilary was sitting on the Roman Road When she saw St Peter harvesting the fields She requested that he rest And she shared her meagre lunch with him After some thought Peter gave Hilary a small flint stone He told her that even though the day was now warm She would need it […]

In an act of desperation I burnt the cross In a field of golden wheat The flames soon consumed me And my dusts were lost in the summer winds  

I was told by the old men of the village That St Andrew was crucified on your dark sails Whether this is true or not is not my concern But today I have been accompanied By The Lucia Jacinta and Francisco Who will sprinkle Holy Water on your master bricks And absolve you of your […]

Hilary Lyons sat in her bath in the middle of a cornfield She should have been collecting flowers for the church But because of the heat she had decided to take a bath instead After about an hour the new curate jumped into her bath And began washing her sins from her back Later after […]