Oliver Cromwell's Ely by Katherine Clements

Writing historical fiction involves a lot of research and time spent in libraries, museums and archives. It’s part of the job that I love. But when I’m working on a book, creating a sense of place is an important part of the process. Readers often ask how I research locations, how I find out what real places would have been like at a specific point in history.

My first novel, The Crimson Ribbon, is set mostly in London and Abingdon, but it begins in Ely, in the home of one of the town’s most famous residents, Oliver Cromwell. It was during my first research trip there that I learned the importance of visiting real settings, wherever possible.

The book is set during the years of the English Civil Wars when Cromwell was a man of influence in the town. He moved there in 1636, became Governor in 1643 and relocated his family to London towards the end of 1646.

Oliver Cromwell's House

Luckily, the family house still stands and is now a museum. I’d spent a lot of time learning about the man himself and walking around the house was quite emotive. On a practical level, it allowed me to understand the layout of the rooms and the positioning of the house both geographically and socially. Some of the interiors still have their original paneling and the inclusion of seventeenth century furniture gives it atmosphere, despite this somewhat creepy addition of an Oliver waxwork!

As soon as I decided to open the book in Ely, I knew the cathedral would feature in some way. It’s a spectacular building, made more so by the surrounding landscape. Ely isn’t a built up town even today, so it’s easy to imagine how impressive the cathedral would have been when Ely was just a village, and what a presence it must have been in people’s lives.

By the seventeenth century, many of the old medieval cathedrals had fallen into disuse and were beginning to crumble to ruin. They were used as meeting places, or markets and in some cases, such as St Paul’s in London, became hotbeds of sedition and debauchery. But Ely remained partly in use throughout. The structure overshadows Cromwell’s house and St Mary’s church where the Cromwell family worshipped; as a strict Puritan, Cromwell would not have welcomed this ever-present symbol of the old faith and all its associations.

The reputation of Cromwell as an iconoclast is well known but there’s no evidence that he was personally responsible for any damage to Ely Cathedral. It’s been claimed that he oversaw the demolition of the fallen tower and transept but in fact, this fell in the fourteenth century and most of the damage we see today was a result of Reformation zeal a hundred years before. A later Parliamentary campaign to demolish such buildings, never came to fruition.

Climbing the cathedral tower is a memorable experience. The fenland landscape falls away and a huge cloud-filled sky stretches out above. It gives a real sense of scale, quite different from on the ground. I couldn’t help wonder about the atmosphere of awe and superstition that might have surrounded these buildings and what it would have meant to the ordinary people that lived in the cathedral’s shadow during those tumultuous years.

The landscape surrounding Ely would have been quite different then too. By the mid-seventeenth century the Fens were being drained but the Isle of Ely was still surrounded by floodwaters at certain times of year. These days, there’s virtually nothing of the old fenland landscape left, but a visit to Wicken Fen gave me a good idea of how it might have looked. This National Trust nature reserve is doing great conservation work and is very evocative.

And what of the town itself? I began by studying old maps and images, plotting seventeenth century streets onto modern plans, to get a sense of layout and distances. Google maps can be a great help here, but nothing beats an actual visit. Ely is packed with history and walking the streets it’s not difficult to trace the old town seen in this 1610 map.

John Speed's map of Ely, 1610

I’ve also found that local museums, visitor centres and tourist information offices can house a wealth of information. I’ve discovered pamphlets and books written by local historians that give the kind of detail you can’t find elsewhere and lend a bit of colour – great for things like local myths and legends (and, significantly, the names of seventeenth century taverns!).

Turns out Oliver Cromwell’s Ely can still be found, just beneath the modern veneer. All that’s missing is the stink and clamour of seventeenth century England, and for that, we have imagination.


For more about Ely and its history, see these posts by fellow History Girls Adele Geras and Karen Maitland.


Oliver Cromwell's House

Ely Cathedral

Toppings Bookshop (for local history books and much more)


www.katherineclements.co.uk

'Eels and Ely: The Slippery Side of History' by Karen Maitland

We are delighted to welcome Karen Maitland as our guest blogger for December. She has given us a suitably spooky and squirmy post for our month of ghostly Christmas adventures.


Karen Maitland is fascinated by the myth, magic and life of the Middle Ages, which she draws on for her novels. Her medieval thrillers include Company of Liars set in the time of the plague and The Owl Killers about a beguinage, a medieval city of women. Her most recent novel is The Gallows Curse in which a woman is tricked into becoming a sin-eater during the Interdict of King John. Karen is also a member of the Medieval Murderers, six historical crime authors who together write an annual medieval crime novel, the most recent being The Sacred Stone and Hill of Bones.
www.karenmaitland.com

A few weeks ago I found myself clambering over the roof of Ely Cathedral on a freezing winter’s day looking for a convenient place to conceal a corpse – or at least part of one. Before you call the police, perhaps I should explain that this was research for a joint medieval crime novel I write every year with a team of five other medieval crime and thriller writers known as the Medieval Murderers – Philip Gooden, Susannah Gregory, Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight, and Ian Morson. It was not the best day to have chosen to venture up on to a cathedral tower, but I only had one day to do it. It was blowing a gale. My fingers and face were numb with cold and I was trying not to be sick every time I looked down. (I never used to be bothered by heights – is it an age thing, I wonder?)

The day before I’d been reading an interview with chick-lit author Victoria Connelly in which she talked about how she did the research for her latest book, ‘A Weekend with Mr Darcy’, by lying on the sofa watching Jane Austen films. I thought of that as I squeezed through an impossibly tiny medieval door high up in a turret and wondered why on earth I’d chosen to write historical novels instead of chick-lit. I too could have been tucked up cosily by the fire with a box of chocolates, drooling over Colin Firth.

But when I did eventually reach the top of the octagon tower, I remembered exactly why I love historical novels. From the tower you can see as far as Cambridge and the shape of the landscape spread out around you for miles. As I looked, the modern buildings seemed to disappear and I saw Ely as they must have done in the Middle Ages: that safe beacon of a hill rising up out of dark and dangerous watery fens.

 I saw boats on the River Ouse bearing the great blocks of limestone to build the Cathedral and the thousands of live eels in barrels being sent back along the river to pay for the stone. Far below I saw the shadows of chattering medieval pilgrims making their way to the shrine of the 7th Century princess, St Etheldreda’s, and every one of those ghosts had a story that was begging to be told.

But the most magical moment was yet to come. The sun was setting blood-red in the sky as I was travelling home. As I passed a stretch of fenland I suddenly saw a modern eel catcher wading through the water dragging his woven eel traps (eel hives) on an identical boat to one my characters, Raffe, borrows from the eel catcher in my medieval thriller ‘The Gallows Curse’. Except for the eel-catcher’s clothes, it was a scene that hasn’t changed for more than 1,000 years. 

Peter Carter: 'The Last Eel Catcher on the Ouse'

(Image courtesy of Allan and Debbie on their wonderful website on the waterways)

 

Did you know…

Eels, as well as being an important food in the Middle Ages, had many other uses, not least that wives were advised that if they wanted to cure their husbands of drinking too much they should pop an live eel into a flagon of his favourite tipple, leave it there to die, then serve it to their husbands. They were assured he would never again touch a drop of that drink.  I wonder how many husbands survived the shock of that treatment. But if your partner over indulged on the Christmas – you now know what to do come New Year’s Eve. First catch your eel…

And should you be suffering from aches and pains this winter, eels were thought to be a certain cure for ague or rheumatism. Medieval housewives would advise that you should first cut off the head of your eel – a wise precaution as they have a vicious bite – soften it with fat and stuff it with thyme and lavender, then cover it with mint and bury it in peat all summer. In the autumn dig it up and fasten it above the knee as a garter. It might not go with your party dress, of course.

 But even if your New Year’s Party doesn’t involve eels, I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2012.

Thank you, Karen, for visiting.

A visit to Ely by Adèle Geras

On September 3rd, a sunny Saturday, we went off to see Ely Cathedral and to take in the other glories of the city: Topping's Bookshop, and the Almonry Restaurant, where we had an idyllic cream tea with good friends in the shadow of one of the most beautiful buildings in the country - maybe even in the world.



I've been fond of Ely Cathedral for a very long time. "Tom's Midnight Garden" by Philippa Pearce is one of my favourite children's books. There's a lot about Ely Cathedral in that and though we didn't manage to climb all those stairs to the top of the tower on this occasion, I intend to do so next time. Also, Ely is the cathedral in the Roth Novels of Andrew Taylor, which I admire enormously. These are called THE FOUR LAST THINGS, THE JUDGEMENT OF STRANGERS and REQUIEM FOR AN ANGEL and I recommend them unreservedly.

We were lucky on the day we went. It happened to be the wedding day of Mark and Joanna, and though part of the nave (choir stalls, etc) was out of bounds, we had the benefit of the organ playing marvellous music, the sun streaming through the doors and lighting up the whole cathedral and hearing Mark and Joanna exchanging their vows, as well as what the presiding clergyman was saying to them about Etheldreda, who founded the Cathedral. The Cathedral website is full of information about its history.



Her story is fascinating. She wasn't actually very sold on marriage. She ran away from her first husband, and the marriage was unconsummated. She took shelter on the Isle of Ely and founded an Abbey. You can read all about her (and it's fascinating!) on the Early British Kingdoms website.

Cathedrals, as well as being grand and imposing buildings, built to glorify God and enthrall and awe a public that couldn't read and didn't have television (I'm not being frivolous here. The stained glass windows are a sort of permanent display of highly-coloured and exciting images and very beautiful they are too) also have small corners where eccentric things can be found. This, in one of the very oldest parts of the building caught my eye:



Something else caught my eye also, and I think is going to be an inspiration for some kind of story. Etheldreda famously embroidered vestments for St Cuthbert of whom she was very fond, and on a wall right by the Cathedral Shop there's this banner, showing the Saint, which is carried in processions:



Anyone who's read my work knows that I'm a sucker for handicrafts of any kind but best of all was this. I'm putting it up even though it's illegible what with the glare and the size of the print but you must take my word for it, that what it says is that the banner was embroidered by MISS YARNS ....yes! Can you credit it? She did the work in Bayswater in 1910 and I'm busy imagining what sort of person she must have been...watch this space.



After leaving the Cathedral and before going for our tea and scones, we visited Topping's of Ely. This bookshop is a treasure house and a model of what a bookshop ought to be. It was founded by Robert Topping (ex-Manchester Waterstone's Deansgate branch)and I'll be returning to it often, I hope. Anyone who's around this area (or in Bath where there's another shop) should definitely drop in.

What struck me, thinking later on about all I'd seen was this: various strands of my own history were woven together here. One of the friends we met for tea I've known since I was 18 years old and that's half a century. The bookshop took me back to my days in Manchester and seeing Robert Jones behind the counter was very nostalgic. Books set in Ely took me back, not only to the places they described but also to where I was when I read them....and so on. Everything seemed linked in very ordinary but still amazing ways and I saw all sorts of connections between things that I'd never seen before.

To finish with, here's a picture of me. This is what I looked like in Ely on a sunny Saturday in September.