On Visiting Norwich Guildhall
In the summer of 2014 I visited Norwich Guildhall as part of a creative writing workshop. After a tour of the undercroft we were encouraged to undertake some "freeform" writing from what we had seen of the cells and other places. So the following is more of a brain dump than creative writing:
It's a long way - a long way back - up to 600 years in fact.
Dungeons of the mind, going back in time - ever fading into memory.
Memory produces images, a ship somehow scraped onto a wall in the darkest, dankest bowels of the building. Images of wardens and police drinking cups of brown liquid costing them six pence. Images of prisoners earlier not having that luxury.
Ghosts of the past - Thomas Bikey, Robert Kett, Martha Steward or is it Sheward - the difference is important to me - one could be a relation, the other a total stranger.
The smell of decay in the undercroft. Is it right to allow this to mingle with the aroma of freshly ground coffee? Has economics stolen the day? Has the world of commerce taken over whilst underneath history is hidden away?
Do the people sipping thier Lattes and mochaccinos have any idea of the history of the building and do they reall care?
So many questions.
A novel. A novel based on what we have seen and heard. But what kind of story? A ghost story, a fantasy story, an historical novel. What is it to be? Does it have to be a novel? How about a biography of the Guildhall, how about a piece of historical research, how about a poem.
Things are just not what they seem. Let's put the coffee guzzlers in the same room with the condemned prisoners or would that be going too far? Let's lock them up with no light and no food and just a cup of brown liquid, price £2.20.
Maybe nothing here is as it seems. Down below even the stones are made of wood.
If only the walls could speak, what stories they would have to tell about a place of justice, a place of power and the ultimate living hell.
Nice to end with a piece of poetry. Progression from a prison room for the less dangerous criminals and then a court room - now a coffee shop.
Change from a place of despair (prison) to a place of safety for civic regalia in the Second World War. Let's write a story about the building.
In the summer of 2014 I visited Norwich Guildhall as part of a creative writing workshop. After a tour of the undercroft we were encouraged to undertake some "freeform" writing from what we had seen of the cells and other places. So the following is more of a brain dump than creative writing:
It's a long way - a long way back - up to 600 years in fact.
Dungeons of the mind, going back in time - ever fading into memory.
Memory produces images, a ship somehow scraped onto a wall in the darkest, dankest bowels of the building. Images of wardens and police drinking cups of brown liquid costing them six pence. Images of prisoners earlier not having that luxury.
Ghosts of the past - Thomas Bikey, Robert Kett, Martha Steward or is it Sheward - the difference is important to me - one could be a relation, the other a total stranger.
The smell of decay in the undercroft. Is it right to allow this to mingle with the aroma of freshly ground coffee? Has economics stolen the day? Has the world of commerce taken over whilst underneath history is hidden away?
Do the people sipping thier Lattes and mochaccinos have any idea of the history of the building and do they reall care?
So many questions.
A novel. A novel based on what we have seen and heard. But what kind of story? A ghost story, a fantasy story, an historical novel. What is it to be? Does it have to be a novel? How about a biography of the Guildhall, how about a piece of historical research, how about a poem.
Things are just not what they seem. Let's put the coffee guzzlers in the same room with the condemned prisoners or would that be going too far? Let's lock them up with no light and no food and just a cup of brown liquid, price £2.20.
Maybe nothing here is as it seems. Down below even the stones are made of wood.
If only the walls could speak, what stories they would have to tell about a place of justice, a place of power and the ultimate living hell.
Nice to end with a piece of poetry. Progression from a prison room for the less dangerous criminals and then a court room - now a coffee shop.
Change from a place of despair (prison) to a place of safety for civic regalia in the Second World War. Let's write a story about the building.