Night Stairs to Dormitory #LoveCastles

Do you like my title? Sounds like a fascinating book, don’t you think? Well, it hasn’t been written yet, at least not by me. I just returned from a family holiday in Northumberland, and we visited the Holy Island Lindisfarne. Using our English Heritage membership, we visited Lindisfarne Priory, and enjoyed a fascinating tour of this religious relic. I found the site peaceful and full of intrigue, including the information plaques that were scattered about the ruins.

 This one in particular caught my imagination. The ruined steps are crumbling and stand in the middle of a grassy area, what was once the priory hall. Looking across and up, I could see more steps floating in the ruined tower, and I could only imagine how it must have felt to be a monk trudging up those dark and cold stairs on this lonely island all those centuries ago. Why did they have night stairs to the dormitory? What was the significance? I couldn’t find out while I was there, but I haven’t yet read the guide book that I bought. Perhaps that will hold the answers I seek…

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The Final Resting Place of Anne Bronte

I recently took time away from work (sort of), and spent a week in Scarborough with my family for a much-needed and overdue holiday. Everything about the place offers food for the imagination, and there is so much inspiration for writing that I should be kept busy for many months ahead, while I await the next holiday… As an added bonus, we happened upon the graveyard in which Anne Bronte is buried. The church looks to be a beautiful old building, although I didn’t have time to visit inside. I did, however, visit the graveyard, and what a fascinating place it is.

All of the gravestones are very heavily damaged by weather, and we could see the force of the salty rain that has battered these grand and gracious stones over the past two centuries or so. We could barely read the inscription on Anne Bronte’s headstone, which is why another memorial stone was laid in 2011, as you can see from my photographs. I admit that I have not yet read Anne Bronte’s most famous novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but I do have a paperback copy on my bookshelf, and I have picked it up before now with the intention of reading it, only to be distracted by something else.



The ancient graveyard, with its dark and broken headstones, is very eerie, and very inspiring for the romantic mind. My impression of the Bronte sisters is that they were fairly carefree and cheerful ladies, and I enjoy their lively writing style. It was a great tragedy that Anne Bronte should die at such a young age, but it is clear to see that she succumbed to one of the many medical dangers of their time. I wonder how many wonderful novels died with her? And what she may have been working on at the time of her death? So many questions, so many possibilities…

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