And the Grave Awaits
The Abbot’s Kitchen, Glastonbury Abbey
The Abbot’s Kitchen is a mediaeval octagonal building that was built during the 14th century to serve as the kitchen for Glastonbury Abbey in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. It has been described as “one of the best-preserved medieval kitchens in Europe.”
The kitchen formed part of the opulent abbot’s house, begun under Abbot John de Breynton, and has four large fireplaces at its corners. It is a tribute to how well the reigning abbot of Glastonbury lived. The Abbot’s Kitchen is the only building at Glastonbury to survive the destruction of the abbey intact.
Official video of the Abbot’s Kitchen at Glastonbury Abbey:
What does the Abbot’s Kitchen have to do with my writing?
I researched the history of Bungay, the town in East Anglia where my mother grew up, when I wrote our co-authored book, While the Bombs Fell. My research revealed that a local and ancient inn is believed to be haunted by approximately forty ghosts. This discovery piqued my interest, and I undertook further research about who the ghosts were before they died. One of the phantom’s is believed to have been a monk although I couldn’t find much information about him, or how and why he died and became a ghost.
The ghost of the Bungay monk triggered the idea for a short story about a boy who grew up in Bungay and went to Glastonbury Abbot as a Benedictine oblate to study towards becoming a monk.
Quite by accident, I discovered that the nursery rhyme called Little Jack Horner is rumoured to have been about Thomas Horner, who was the steward to Richard Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury. There is a myth that during the December of 1538, prior to the destruction of the Abbey, Richard Whiting sent Horner to London with a large Christmas pie as a gift for the king. The pie contained the deeds to twelve manor houses, one of which was the manor of Mells in Somerset. Thomas Horner ended up owning the manor of Mells after the nationalization of the Church lands. The story goes that Horner opened the pie during the journey and took out the deeds to the manor of Mells, which he kept for himself. If this Christmas pie gift did exist, it was baked in the Abbot’s Kitchen.
This interesting possible origin to a well-known nursery rhyme contributed to my writing The Christmas Pie, one of the sixteen stories featured in my new collection, And the Grave Awaits.
Introduction to “The Christmas Pie”
“The rough, dirt track that served for a road stretched ahead, unfamiliar and seemingly endless. On either side, dark grey trees rose out of the damp and chilly fog like foreboding sentinels. A bitter wind sighed through their bare branches, heralding the first snow of the season. Drawing his woollen cloak more tightly around his thin shoulders, John tried to focus on anything other than his intense discomfort.
I can’t believe it’s been thirty years since I entered the monastery, he thought. I’ve had such happy and fulfilling years in Glastonbury, and now it feels as if everything is ending. Maybe that is why I feel so tired. More than four years of endless anxiety has worn me down.
John had not travelled since he had been given to Glastonbury Abbey as a Benedictine oblate at the age of ten years old. After training to take his solemn vows as a Benedictine monk, he had devoted his life to learning to read and write and then to gaining as much education as he could. An introvert, this suited his quiet and reflective nature, and he had always avoided travelling and socialising outside of the abbey as much as possible. If he went anywhere, it was a relatively short distance and he used `shank’s pony’ and not a horse.
Aware this journey was important and unavoidable, he had accepted his lot graciously and without complaint. Now, with sunset fast approaching and the cold wrapping itself around him like a shroud, his legs and back ached terribly from the unfamiliar action of sitting on a horse all day. Every now and again, over the course of the long day, they had dismounted and walked to warm themselves up, but for the last hour they had just sat, shoulders slumped, as the horses plodded on towards the next village.”
About And the Grave Awaits
A collection of short paranormal and dark stories. Includes the award-winning short story, “The Bite.”
A group of boys participate in a reality television challenge; to the death.
What does it mean to be a Canary Girl? One young woman is about to find out.
Where is the bride? A beautiful young woman goes missing during a game of hide and seek on her wedding day.
Some stories will make you cry, some will make you gasp, and some will leave you believing in vigilante justice. All will end with a grave.
Amazon USA pre-order link here.