... for Jennifer('s Books), Moonlight Reader, Portable Magic, and every other fan of the Midsomer Murders series ... or of the English "litscape" at large.

In their comments on Mike Finn's review of Ngaio Marsh's Scales of Justice, MR and PM said that England, to them, is more litscape than landscape, and Mike responded that to a certain extent, all Englands are fictional.  It's perhaps not surprising, then, that so many producers of screen adaptations of English literature fashion the "look" of the books they are adapting from what Britain really does have to offer in terms of period visuals and other locations associated with the book(s) being adapted.  In exactly this way, too, the creators of the Midsomer Murders TV series have fashioned an idealized version of Caroline Graham's fictional Midsomer County out ot the very real villages and towns of the so-called "Home Counties" to the south and west of London, particularly in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire.

I've been trying to make bits and pieces of the English (or rather, British) "litscape" part of my visits to the UK for a number of years now.  At the beginning of my 2017 trip, armed with several excellent guidebooks and garnished with the full range of the typical English summer weather (from blazing heat to torrential showers and everything in between), I took a couple of days to tour the area.  I initially thought of sharing some of the photos from that visit chiefly with Jennifer, to say thank you for her many beautiful arts posts (particularly in recent weeks) and because we're both fans of the series and have been chatting about it lately, but MR's and PM's comments -- and MR's suggestion of an "English litscape" reading project -- made me think that maybe others would enjoy them as well.

So here are a few impressions from the real-life "Midsomer" villages when they're not busy pretending to be Midsomer villages.   (Or, indeed, any other -- ostensibly -- quintessentially "English" bit of "screen litscape": Several of these locations will also look familiar to fans of Poirot, Miss Marple, Inspector Morse, Foyle's War, Doctor Who -- various incarnations of the Doctor --, The Vicar of Dibley, and a number of other British TV series or, indeed, big-screen movies.)

(Note: Due to the number of locations and photos, I've decided to split this up into three posts to make it load (a bit) faster.)

Little Missenden (Bucks.)

This is thought to be the spiritual home of  Caroline Graham's Midsomer Murders, and it was also one of the filming locations for TV series's first episode (an adaptation of the first book), The Killings at Badger's Drift.

The Red Lion pub, which appears under its own name in the episode Destroying Angel and under two different aliases in Who Killed Cock Robin? and Talking to the Dead.

Wallingford (Oxfordshire)

To Midsomer Murders fans, also known as Causton -- particularly so, the area around the market square, the Thames bridge, and of course the Corn Exchange, which features as the Causton Playhouse in Death of a Hollow Man, Strangler's Wood, Death's Shadow, and Death of a Stranger.

The Lee (Bucks.)

One of several villages that appeared in numerous episodes, including (in this case) The Killings at Badger's Drift, Death of a Hollow Man, Death's Shadow, Death ofa Stranger, Painted in Blood, and Death in a Chocolate Box.

The Cock and Rabbit pub, a frequent hangout of Barnaby and Troy in the early episodes (e.g., in Painted in Blood).

Beaconsfield (Bucks.)

Littered with historic buildings, several of which have been turned into all manner of businesses in the series.

Barnaby meets Miss Richards in this tea house in the episode Blue Herrings.  (In season 11, it became the Midsomer Constabulary.)

The old rectory became the office of Max Jennings's secretary Barbara in Written in Blood.

The church featured in the episodes Four Funerals and a Wedding, and Ghosts of Christmas Past.

Little Marlow (Bucks.)

Little Marlow became the village of Morton Fendle in Faithful Unto Death; among the buildings featured in addition to several cottages are the village church and the Queen's Head pub.  Some of the cottages also reappear in Ring Out Your Dead, Tainted Fruit, and Sauce for the Goose.

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Nether Winchendon (Bucks.)

Nether Winchendon House -- and grounds -- became the Lodge of the Golden Windhorse in Death in Disguise, as well as Lynton Pargeter's Home ("The Priory") in Talking to the Dead, and the grounds also featured in Garden of Death.

The parish church made an appearance in Things That Go Bump in the Night.

Cuddington (Bucks.)

A village that has won several "best kept village" awards and thus, practically a born setting for the fictional Midsomer County.

Barnaby and Troy set up their incident room in the village hall in Death of a Stranger.  In Death and Dreams, it becomes the band's headquarters; in Bad Tidings it is the location of the "Spanish evening" at the beginning of the episode.

The traditional shop-plus-post office is featured in Death of a Stranger, as well as in Talking to the Dead, where it becomes a spiritualist's shop named Paradorma.

Barnaby picks up Cully (arriving by coach) outside the Crown pub in Death in Disguise.

In Shot at Dawn, Barnaby visits the graves of Douglas Hammond and Thomas Hicks in the Cuddington church graveyard.

Littlewick Green (Berks.)

The village green and village hall (scoreboard and all) were used for the cricket scenes in Dead Man's Eleven.  The Barnabys also go house hunting here in the same episode, and some of the cottages appeared again in A Talent for Life and The Animal Within.

Hambleden (Bucks.)

Also featured in several Midsomer Murders episodes, most notably Blod Will Out (the church, post office and stores, and Stag and Huntsman pub); the pub also in Who Killed Cock Robin?, Down Among the Dean Men, and The Glitch.

Hurley (Berks.)

The cloisters and refectory next to the church were used as Dr. Clive Warnford's house in Blue Herrings.

Joyce buys charcoal at the village shop in Midsomer Life.

Ye Olde Bell Hotel became the Magna Hotel in They Seek Him Here.

Bledlow (Bucks.)

The Lions at Bledlow pub appears in multiple episodes under a variety of names, including in Dead Men's Eleven, King's Crystal, Blue Herrings, Dark Autumn, and The House in the Woods.

The Bledlow village church appears in Death's Shadow and Worm in the Bud.

Chenies Manor (Bucks.)

Edward Allardice's home in Judgement Day, Aspern Hall Museum in Beyond the Grave, and Malham Manor in Orchis Fatalis.

Watlington (Oxfordshire)

The town hall and several shops in the High Street can be seen in Judgement Day.

The Watlington Branch Library (near the war memorial), redesignated as Causton library, appears in the background of a meeting between Scott and Cully at "Midsomer Travel" in Orchis Fatalis.

Watlington church was used in Ring Out Your Dead.

According to one of my guides, "a lane leading off High Street" became Lower Warden in A Tale of Two Hamlets.  Despite the scruffing up in the episode, I'm reasonably sure that this is it (albeit from slightly different perspectives), but in case it isn't, let's go with this one as a stand-in, shall we?

Long Crendon (Bucks.)

Another perpetual favorite of the Midsomer Murders production crew with multiple appearances throughout the series (and more being planned for the future), including:

The High Street, all the way downwards from the church and courthouse at the upper end (see first 3 photos). was used for part of the "Oak Apple Day" celebrations in Dead Letters, and also as a street setting in Death and Dreams; in addition, a number of individual cottages have been used as character residences in other episodes.

Never mind the use of a building in Watlington as Causton Library in Orchis Fatalis (see above), in Dead Letters the honors go to the Long Crendon library!  (The interior -- unfortunately closed when I was visiting -- can be seen in Blood Wedding.)

The Eight Bells pub makes an appearance in A Tale of Two Hamlets.

Westington (Bucks.)

A well was brought to the Westington village green as a prop for a body to be found in it in the episode Who Killed Cock Robin?, and to the extent that the "Oak Apple Day" celebrations in Dead Letters didn't take place in Long Crendon (see above), they were filmed here, too.

Dinton (Bucks.)

Dinton church was used for the wedding at the end of Who Killed Cock Robin?

Chinnor (Oxfordshire)

The Chinnor terminus of the historic Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway became Holm Lane Junction in Death in a Chocolate Box.

The Haseleys (Little & Great) (Oxfordshire)

The owner of this large private residence in Little Haseley, which became Melvyn Stockard's house in Who Killed Cock Robin? and Noah Farrow's home in Midsomer Rhapsody, sometimes makes their grounds accessible to the public.  I was in luck -- the gate was wide open when I visited; so I walked right in and took a look around ...

The wedding scenes in Midsomer Rhapsody were filmed in Great Haseley church, as was the postman's funeral in Dark Autumn.

Great Haseley village hall first morphed into an antique shop in Dark Autumn; then it was, in turn, the venue of the book signing event in The Fisher King and the photo exhibition in Picture of Innocence, and finally it was used as Midsomer Parva village hall in Blood Wedding.

Various cottages in both Great and Little Haseley were used as the homes of the inhabitants of Goodmans Land in Dark Autumn, as well as for character residences in Picture of Innocence, Midsomer Rhapsody, Hidden Depths, and Days of Misrule.

Turville (Oxfordshire)

Turville became Midsomer Parva in the episode The Straw Woman, with many exterior shots -- notably those of the church -- filmed here, the village green being the place where the titular straw effigy was burned, one of the cottages serving as Liz Francis's home, and Turville school posing as the village hall.

The cottage used as Liz Francis's home (I think).

The Turville village scenery was also used for Murder on St. Malley's Day, with the local pub masquerading as the Chalk and Gown public house.

In Dark Autumn, Barnaby talks to Louise August in a field near the windmill above Turville, with the vilage itself appearing in the background.  As the photos suggest, it was raining the proverbial cats and dogs when I visited, so I decided to curb my enthusiasm for replicating that exact view and instead contented myself with a view in the opposite direction, from the village towards the windmill ...

Warborough (Oxfordshire)

The village with the most classic Midsomer Murders "accoutrements" and hence, another "must" location choice for the makers of the series.

Warborough first appeared in Market for Murder, where we see Barnaby and Troy driving around the village green.  The green was also used as the location of the "Midsomer Mallow in Bloom" open garden day in Bad Tidings (and Scott's first abode is in a cottage off the green; another cottage becomes the dolls' shop in that episode).  The cottages along the green also make an appearance in other episodes, such as Left for Dead and Second Sight, and the cricket pavilion becomes the Badgers Drift village hall in The Great and the Good.

The Six Bells on the Green Inn appears under its own name in Bad Tidings and Left for Dead, and under a number of aliases in Second Sight, Sins of Commission, and The Great and the Good.

Brill (Buckinghamshire)

The village's most striking feature, its 17th century post mill, became Sarah Proudie's home in A Tale of Two Hamlets; and Sgt. Troy interviews Phil Harrison outside the mill while he is busily providing one of its sails with a new coat of paint.

The church and village green both feature in Four Funerals and a Wedding, with the green becoming the setting of the traditional "Skimmington Ride".

Henley-on-Thames (Oxfordshire)

The Henley Bridge, regatta course, and generally much waterfront scenery can be seen in Dead in the Water when the Barnabys go to see the regatta (or try to, only to have a murderer spoil their and everybody else's fun).

Henley was a stand-in for Causton in Last Year's Model, with the town hall (left) becoming the courthouse.  In Down Among the Dead Men, Barnaby and Jones visit a solicitor near the market square, and in The Black Book, the town hall became the auction rooms.

In Last Year's Model, Barnaby and Jones meet Pru Plunkett in the Argyll pub (above left), and Gabriel Machin's traditional butcher's shop further down the same street becomes Anton Thorneycrotf's Butchers in The Magician's Nephew.

Englefield (Berks.)

Englefield House -- chiefly the patio and library -- was used as the house of Simon and Aloysius Wilmington in The Magician's Nephew.  Aloysius also attends Englefield church in the same episode.

Dorchester(-on-Thames) (Oxfordshire)

For reasons immediately obvious to any visitor, this is another favorite location of the makers of the Midsomer Murders series.  In addition to the episodes mentioned in connection with specific places below, it also features in Things That Go Bump in the Night, Dead in the Water, and Dance With the Dead.

Dorchester Abbey makes a brief appearance in Four Funerals and a Wedding.

The Abbey Museum becomes the Midsomer Newton Museum in The House in the Woods.

The George Hotel (an authentic coaching inn built in 1495!) appears under the name The Feathers in The House in the Wood, and as The Maid in Splendour in the episode of that same name.

The White Hart Hotel (built in 1691) can be seen in the background in some episodes.

Thame (Oxfordshire)

A charming market town (pronounced "Tame", incidentally) that was used a location in no less than ten episodes: Shot at Dawn, Midsomer Life, Picture of Innocence, The Maid in Splendour, Things That Go Bump in the Night, Dead in the Water, The House in the Woods, Vixen's Run, Blood Wedding, and Days of Misrule.

The area around the Cornmarket and adjacent streets provided many of the visuals of Luxton Deeping in Picture of Innocence, and it was also the location of the jeweller's shop in Dead in the Water, of Harriet Davis Estate Agents in The House in the Woods, of various cafés (both real and fictional) frequented by the detectives in these episodes, and the location of the infamous "kissing photo bomb scene" intended to incriminate / embarrass Barnaby in Picture of Innocence. -- For the same episode, the shop at the corner of Cornmarket Street (now a picture framing business) was mocked up as a photography store called Quikpix, supposedly located in Causton.

Thame town hall became the Causton Arts Centre in The Maid in Splendour and the mayor's office in Shot at Dawn.  Joyce can be seen singing carols outside the building in Days of Misrule.

The (Georgean) Spread Eagle Hotel, a local institution, appeared as the Morecroft Hotel in Midsomer Life.

Waddesdon (Bucks.)

Finally, the wholly underused pièce de résistance among all the Midsomer Murders locations: Waddesdon, an honest-to-God neo-Renaissance Loire-style castle plonked right into the middle of the English countryside in the late 1900s; turrets, external corkscrew staircase, alcoves and all, on the behest of one ... Baron Rothschild.  (Though since 1957, the property has been administered by the National Trust.)  The house and grounds were used in numerous big-screen movies -- you may most recently have seen the grounds stand in for those of what Lord Peter Wimsey calls "Buck House", i.e., Buckingham Palace, in The Queen -- but in Midsomer Murders, we only get an ever so brief glimpse of a single side wing turret and a bit of lawn in the background while the Barnabys are having lunch in the café, all in aid of the suggestion that they are vacationing in France, at the beginning of Death of a Stranger.  I'm sure you'll forgive me if for once I was not interested at all in the actual filming location but, instead, spent all my time exploring the main attraction ...

The Trip:

* Chiltern Hills and Thames Valley (to mystery lovers, aka "Midsomer County" -- though given that this is an area chock-full of quintessential(ly) English villages, it's no surprise that it also routinely provides locations for other series, such as Inspector Morse, The Vicar of Dibley, and of course, adaptations of Agatha Christie's mysteries ... Christie herself, after all, also spent her last years in this area, in a village just outside of Wallingford, where she is also buried.)

* Chawton: Jane Austen's home

* Gloucester and Malmesbury

* The Welsh Borderland: The Welsh Marches, Herefordshire, and Shropshire

* Bosworth and Leicester

* East Anglia: Norfolk, Ely, and Stour Valley (aka [John] Constable Country)

The Souvenirs:

* Jane Austen:

- Pride and Prejudice -- an imitation leather-bound miniature copy of the book's first edition

- Lady Susan -- audio version performed, inter alia, by Harriet Walter

- Teenage Writings (including, inter alia, Cassandra, Love and Freindship, and The History of England)

* Terry Townsend: Jane Austen's Hampshire (gorgeously illustrated hardcover)

* Hugh Thomson:

- Illustrations to Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion

- Illustrations to Mansfield Park and Emma

* Pen Vogler: Tea with Jane Austen

... plus other Austen-related bits, such as a playing card set featuring Hugh Thomson's illustrations for Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Persuasion, two Austen first edition refrigerator magnets, two "Austen 200" designer pens, a Chawton wallpaper design notepad, and a set of Austen-related postcards.

* Margery Kempe: The Book of Margery Kempe
* Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love

(have read bits of pieces of both, but never yet the whole thing(s) -- something to be remedied soonish)

* Margaret Sanders (ed.):

- Letters of England's Queens

- Letters of England's Kings

("Queens" looks decidedly more interesting, but I figured since there were both volumes there ... Unfortunately, neither contains any Plantagenet correspondence, though; they both start with the Tudors.)

* Terry Jones: Medieval Lives

* Ian Mortimer:

- The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England 1327-1330

- 1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

* Chris Skidmore: Bosworth -- The Birth of the Tudors

* David Baldwin: Richard III

* Richard Hayman: The Tudor Reformation

* Glyn E. German: Welsh History

(The last two are decidedly more on the "outline" side, but they're useful as fast, basic references)

* Martin Gayford: Constable in Love -- the painter John Constable, that is.

* Andrea Wulf: The Invention of Nature (yeah, I know, late to the party, but anyway ... and at least I got the edition with the black cover!)

* Chris Beardshaw: 100 Plants that almost changed the World (as title and cover imply, nothing too serious, but a collection of interesting tidbits nevertheless)

* Niall Ferguson: The House of Rothschild -- The World's Banker, 1849-1999

* Michael Jecks, Knights Templar:

- The Leper's Return

- The Boy-Bishop's Glovemaker

- The Devil's Acolyte

- The Chapel of Bones

- The Butcher of St. Peter's

- The Malice of Unnatural Death

* Shirley McKay: Hue & Cry (a mystery set in Jacobean St. Andrews, Scotland)

... and finally, two present-day mystery/thrillers, just to balance off (well, not really, but anyway ...) all that history:

* Jo Nesbø: The Snowman

* Michael Connelly: The Late Show
 

... plus several more mugs for my collection (because I clearly don't own enough of those yet), two Celtic knot bookmarks, a Celtic knot T-shirt, a Celic knot pin, a Celtic knot designer pen (can you tell I really like Celtic knot designs?), assorted handmade soaps and lavender sachets, and assorted further postcards and sticky notes, plus in-depth guidebooks of pretty much every major place I visited (which guidebooks I sent ahead by mail before leaving England, so they're currently still en route to my home).

ETA:

Oh, and then there's John le Carré's The Pigeon Tunnel, which I bought at the airport right before my departure and am currently reading.  Books that you buy at the departure for a trip do qualify for a vacation book haul, don't they?

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I’m writing this review as part of Rosie’s Book Review Team and I was provided with a copy of the book that I freely chose to review.

I have just finished reading Sue Coletta’s Marred and I wanted to see what happened next. Reading the two books back-to-back allowed me to think a bit more about the genre, the characters and the style.

Here we have again the married couple of Niko Quintano, now sheriff in Alexandria, Grafton County, New Hampshire, and his wife, crime novelist Sage. They moved trying to leave behind a tragedy but it seems it followed them, and in Marred there was more heartache and family loses for the Quintanos. Now, the couple has a child, their two kids (their beloved dogs, Rugger and Colt, which I didn’t mention in my last review although they play an important role), and they are enjoying life. The book doesn’t allow us to relax though, quite the opposite, as it opens with a terrifying scene, narrated in the first person from Sage’s perspective. She is locked up somewhere, small, dark and cold, floating in water, and can’t recall how she got there. And we, the readers, share in her anguish and fear and are thrown in at the deep end from the beginning. The book then goes back and we get to know how Sage ended up there. Her plight is linked to a new bizarre wave of murders that befall the county but there are several interrelated plots and all of them touch the different characters personally. What should have been a happy time for Sage and Niko turns into another nightmare and nobody is safe.

The story is told from several of the characters’ points of view, as was the case with Marred. Sage, the writer, narrates her story in the first person and is good at observing events, but especially at talking about feelings and analysing the impact their horrific experiences might have on all of them (including her 13 months’ old baby son, Noah, and their two dogs). Her husband Niko and Frankie, the deputy sheriff with attitude, wit and a fashionable sense of dress, also have their own stories, but these are told in the third-person.

I talked about genre in the previous review but I have to come back to it. Whilst the book works as police-procedural, due to the details about murder scenes and also to the lectures on the subject (the deputies in training come handy as a justification and a stand-in for the readers, and this time even Frankie gets to explain some aspects of forensic science), there is a lot of content that relates to family relationships and also to the effects of crime and trauma on the survivors, that put me in mind of what these days is called domestic-noir (although in standard cases, the guilty party tends to be part of the family. Not so here…). Although this aspect is more evident in the fragments narrated by Sage, Frankie also gets confronted with her own relationship and how it can be a source of conflict with one’s profession and moral stance (she’s still one of my favourite characters but she behaves in a more reckless manner that I had ever imagined she would and shows less concern for the law than I expected), and Niko also struggles to try to maintain his professional demeanour when faced with attacks on his beloved family.

There are several story strands and a variety of crimes, and readers will be kept on their toes trying to decide how they related to each other (if they do), how many criminals there are and what their motives are. Although the sheriff notes the difficulties and the limitations of law enforcement in the area as it is not a high-crime place, I couldn’t help but think of series like Murder, She Wrote or Midsomer Murders where a seemingly sleepy town is attacked by an epidemic of crime, courtesy of it being the setting of a series. Also, like in most stories where both members of a couple investigate crimes (professionally or not), at some point, one or both of them end up becoming victims, and this has been Sage’s lot from the beginning, perhaps more so in this book, as she has even more to lose now. This novel might cross over several genres but it does live up to the expectations of the readers and it will keep them turning pages.

The characters keep stumbling on the same stone over and over. If in the previous book they got into serious trouble for not completely trusting each other and lying (with the best of intentions at heart), they still do it here (perhaps not to the same extent) and there is a price to be paid for it. I felt like I do sometimes when watching a horror movie when you see the characters keep getting themselves into trouble, and you want to shout at them: ‘Don’t do that! Don’t be stupid!’ but they don’t listen. The murders are as gruesome as in the previous book and varied; we get a better glimpse at Frankie’s life and some of her connections, but there is more of the personal point of view and dramatic side of the story, at least in my opinion. The book has humorous scenes and the witty dialogue that’s one of the author’s trademarks, but it is also scary and tense, and even more terrifying if you’re an author yourself. (Beware of book signings is all I’ll say.)

Once again, the ending is satisfying (as a psychiatrist I’ll keep my peace rather than discuss the details) but has a hook and leaves readers with an eerie feeling. I wasn’t sure I was totally clear in my mind as to how the different strands fitted in, especially with so many things being hidden and not fully knowing who knew what.  I wouldn’t have minded one of those scenes à la Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, where the detective gives an explanation and everything is tied up with a nice ribbon. Although, perhaps it just shows that the rhythm of the novel is quite fast and if you blink, you’ve missed it.

Another novel by Sue Coletta with an irresistible story that requires a strong stomach but will be of interest to readers who like to dig into the character’s psyche and are after more than just a well-plotted book. Oh, and readers must like dogs too. Especially scary for writers.