Travelling Tuesday ... Arundel, West Sussex

Arundel, Sussex

As anyone who’s read my personal blog knows, I’ve just come back from holiday in Arundel. So that's my choice for this inaugral 'Travelling Tuesday'.

In actual fact, we stayed in a little village called Coldwaltham which is about 4 miles outside – and, if you’ve read ‘Ordinary Girl, Society Groom’ you’ll recognise that as the name of my fictional Abbey.

Sussex is a county, stretched long and thin, right at the bottom of Great Britain and is just about commutable distance from London. Within its boundaries there are marshes, meadows, single-track roads, the rolling South Downs and old, old houses every way you turn.

In amongst it all is Arundel - a very beautiful and very English place. It’s situated at the head of navigation of the River Arun, apparently one of our fastest flowing rivers. In the nineteenth century large sailing ships were towed upriver by a steam tug and Arundel was an important port and, although the ships are long gone, it still has that kind of feel.

Beautiful houses scramble for position around Arundel Castle – any one of which would make a suitable home for a romance hero or heroine. Parking outside their house would be a little difficult but they’d be compensated by an excellent butchers, grocers, bakers, not to mention a very good bookshop and the all-important tea room.

A history ‘boff’ hero or heroine would also be well served. Maltravers Street (once nicknamed White Waistcoat Lane because of the posh gents who lived in it) is full of stunning regency houses. And King Street has flint cottages which are supposed to have been built by French prisoners during the Napoleonic Wars.

A historically informed hero/heroine might also like to point out the blocked up windows which came about when the owner of the house was not able, or didn’t wish, to pay the tax on windows that was introduced by Pitt the Younger in the eighteenth century.

In the High Street he/she might like to notice the gables of the shops and remark that the chequerwork was the sign of a gunsmith.

Dominating everything is Arundel Castle. The eleventh Duke of Norfolk adopted the castle as his ducal seat in 1787 and set about improving it to his taste. The fifteenth Duke then changed a whole lot more and the end result is something that’s very ‘useful’ to a Mills & Boon author looking for a ‘High Society’ setting.

My one caveat is that you cannot write a heroine who’s particularly attached to three inch stilettos. At least, you could but you must make her uncomfortable in them. It’s very hilly.

Also don’t let her push a double buggy anywhere without swearing softly under her breath.

by Natasha Oakley
http://www.natashaoakley.com
http://natashaoakley.blogspot.com

Natasha's latest release is: Accepting The Boss's Proposal a Harlequin Romance.

Check out more about this book at her website!