Some places never truly leave us. For me, one of those places is Framlingham Castle.
I first visited the castle as a child, and it seemed impossibly romantic and mysterious. I remember trees in the car park laden with what looked like magical golden apples. To a child, they might as well have belonged in a fairy tale, and I have never forgotten them.
My mother and I ventured onto the castle battlements. Neither of us was particularly fond of heights, and I distinctly remember the shiver of fear as we looked down from the walls. It was the sort of experience that stays with you—the feeling that something exciting, and perhaps a little dangerous, might be waiting around the next corner.
I also remember an antique shop in the town itself. Sitting in the window was a beautiful jewelry box, labelled as having once belonged to Lady Emma Hamilton. I desperately wanted it, but my holiday pocket money fell sadly short of the asking price. I still recall the disappointment.
When I came to write my newest Lyon's Den story, Lyon on the Loose, those memories came flooding back. The atmosphere of Framlingham—the ancient walls, the sense of history, the mixture of enchantment and unease—helped shape the setting and mood of the book. It is wonderful how places we visit as children can continue to inspire our imaginations decades later. Framlingham (with a little bit of Stokesay Castle mixed in) became the model for Mundlingham Castle, home to the heroine of Lyon on the Loose.
Sometimes the seeds of a story are planted long before we ever realise it.
As for the jewelry box that supposedly belonged to Lady Hamilton, I still wonder about it from time to time. Part of me wishes I had somehow found enough holiday money to buy it. Another part suspects it would have been very hard to prove the item's provenance. I'll never know, but perhaps that's fine. Writers live on questions, possibilities and half-glimpsed mysteries, and that jewelry box has remained one of mine.
Image courtesy of Michael Garlick, inner court at Framlingham Castle