In September 2023, I went to England and spent a week with friends, walking in the Peak District. For years I’d dreamed of going there, because that’s where my book is set.
I expected to enjoy myself, but I wasn’t prepared for how happy the trip would make me. All week I was filled with a sense of abundance and quiet joy.
I got to follow in my characters’ footsteps, visiting neighborhoods, buildings, and landscapes that are important to my story. I’d spent so much time exploring those places in my imagination, and now I was there in my body. It felt a bit like going through a portal and ending up in Narnia or Middle-earth, or some other magical land from a beloved book. Of course, my book doesn’t exist as a book in the world yet, so the imaginary world I was visiting wasn’t a shared one. It was my own private dream-world, come to life.
Here are a few pictures from the trip.
Here I am in London, near the family home of my main character, Alexander Starling. The Starling residence would have stood at 6 Melcombe Place, in a building that has since been torn down. Alexander lived there in the early 1870s, and his family must have moved out before the end of the decade, because the novelist E.M. Forster was born in that house in 1879. Trafalgar Square. Alexander walks through on his way to Mr. Purdy’s shop in Whitechapel Road. The train to Alexander’s boarding school, Tangleheart, leaves from St. Pancras Station. Traveling with him is his cousin, Edith–though neither of them is happy about this. It’s all the doing of Alexander’s mother, Dorothea Starling, who believes that Alexander in danger. She insists that Edith go with him as a magical bodyguard.In my book, people with magical powers–like Alexander’s mother and cousin–are called “cunning folk.” I was so excited when I wandered into Treadwell’s Bookshop near our hotel and found these issues of Cunning Folk Magazine! During the train journey to Tangleheart, Alexander meets Mr. Feverfew, a scientist and inventor. Mr. Feverfew has a special type of glass disk that makes magic visible. When he looks through the glass, Alexander marvels at the shimmering threads of magic that flow over the landscape.As soon as Alexander arrives at school, his friends Sameed Barrett and Danny Turpin lead him through the wood to a hidden lair, in a cavern at the base of an old tree. The Peak District is known for gritstone “edges” like this one. Alexander and his friends like to climb to the top and take in the view.In the valley behind me is the town of Baslow and Chatsworth Estate, both of which are real. Alexander and his friends would also see Tangleheart School for Cunning Boys, which is imaginary. During our daily walks, I sketched some landscapes–and some sheep.We saw these turtles in the village of Eyam. They made me think of Firkin, the turtle-familiar of Alexander’s cousin Edith. Memorial for Joseph Paxton, landscape architect for Chatsworth House and designer of the Crystal Palace. In my book, he’s also Alexander’s maternal grandfather. Joseph’s daughter, Dorothea, is a powerful cunning woman and brilliant architect. After she marries Julius Starling, she joins the family firm, Starling & Sons. Alexander’s dearest wish is to be cunning, just like his mother.Stand Tower, an Elizabethan-era hunting lodge above Chatsworth House. Imagine that through the door is a hidden portal to the fairy world, protected by powerful spells.When Alexander is wrongly arrested and charged with a crime he didn’t commit, his trial is held in the Tangleheart chapel, which looks something like this.Here I am with my friends, ready for another magical day of walking and exploring landmarks from my book.
Love this post. As a reader, you did such a spectacular job of describing so many of these places that they already felt and looked (hem) familiar! 😉 Soooo especially cool to see those cunning folk books!
Congratulations on making this trip. What a special joy to have written and imagined so deeply about a place and to finally visit it in person.
Chalon Emmons 
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