For this novel, I have returned to the Bedfordshire scene, which was the setting for ‘His Lordship’s Gardener.’ Bedfordshire was where I was born and where I grew up, so it is a part of the world that is very familiar to me.

Miss Montague takes a position as schoolmistress in the village of Brooks. This place is invented, but Stagsden and Bromham, situated nearby, are real villages. She also visits Bedford on a few occasions, and takes lunch at the Swan, a hotel which still stands by the river next to the town bridge. Bedford was a fair sized place even in those days, and shops like the ones that Flavia visited would have been found there; but I did not have any specific establishments in mind.

At one point, Flavia is taken to Turvey to have lunch at The Three Fyshes. This inn would certainly have been there at that time, and was possibly already serving its own brew, the Two Henrys, which was certainly still on sale as little as ten years ago. The statue known as Jonah, that well known landmark which stands in the middle of the river there, would not have been seen by the characters in my book. He did not arrive until later.

Miss Montague is fascinated when one of the locals unwraps and eats a Bedfordshire clanger in her presence. Like the Cornish pasty, this concoction was developed as an early style packed lunch, and had meat at one end and jam at the other. Recipes for it can be found on the net.

At the time when the book is set, education was a haphazard business. Some villages did have schools, often dependent upon the patronage of the local squire, or the church. Not many remain, but it is possible to see a good example at the Black Country Museum.