Hello everybody - Welcome to our website Blog.
We, Elizabeth and Linda, are grinning at each other, finding it hard to believe that we have managed to get this far! The book is on Amazon as a largish paperback version and is also available on Kindle with, we are happy to say, wonderful reviews. Having taken the plunge we have had printed a normal paperback size book which looks great. Now for the hard part - selling the book direct to readers in Kent where the story is mainly set. We will let you know where we will be out visiting in due course. Any ideas where we can do this without getting ourselves arrested?
The cover of our book shows the medieval London Bridge circa 1600. The beautiful illustration was created by Simon Edwards, an architect, and if you go to his site 3dartvision.co.uk, or www.historyrebuilt.com follow ‘Gallery’ and ‘History Rebuilt’ you can see a more detailed view of the whole bridge. Zoom in on the wonderful detail, it’s well worth seeing, along with his other illustrations. We are grateful to Peter for agreeing to allow us to use his design.
Did you know that until 1750 London Bridge was the only bridge across the Thames? (Imagine that!) Crossing the bridge could take at least an hour, so people mainly used ferries to cross the river if they could afford it.
The bridge was only 26 feet (8 metres) wide with only half of that width being the carriageway, the rest of the space occupied by buildings that hung out both over the river and the roadway itself, almost touching in the middle. The Thames was much wider then than now, and the bridge was some around 900 feet (270 metres) long.
We mention St Paul’s Cathedral in the book, and as the novel is set in 1660/1661 this is the old St Paul’s which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666. The magnificent St Paul’s Cathedral that we see today with its spectacular dome is very different from its predecessor which had a spire which was then one of the tallest in the world, estimated at 460 feet. Following a fire in 1561 the spire fell down, crashing through the wooden roof of the nave. The roof was repaired but the spire was never rebuilt and when our characters see it the building is still in a state of disrepair.
Elizabeth & Linda (Mitchell & Mitchell)
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