Page 32 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
Elfrida Price-Jones
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Beginnings
An outline of the situation and history of the village and its environs, including the early monastic ruins and the later rise of a strange religious sect.
Chapter 2: Fairies or Angels?
The many legends of fairy and angel visitations.
Chapter 3: Lost Treasure
Chapter 4: Gentlemen and Buccaneers
Some early history of the ancient Grace family, Old Grace Hall and the manor of Risings, together with the tale of a Regency scandal.
Chapter 5: The Grace Garden
The creation of the seventeenth-century apothecary garden at Old Grace Hall and the Tradescant connection.
Chapter 6: The Heyday of the Victorian and Edwardian Day-trippers
The creation of the River Walk, the advent of cycling tours and the arrival of the Verdi family and the first ice-cream parlour in Lancashire.
Chapter 7: The Jericho’s End Group
The flourishing artists’ colony between the wars.
Chapter 8: Jericho’s End Today
The post-war decline in visitors and the slow climb back to the popular tourist destination that it is today, with a map of the various interesting points and amenities.
Chapter 9: Then and Now
A collection of old and new photographs.
My eyelids were growing heavy at this point, but I turned over the page and read on.
Introduction
In this short book I have endeavoured to describe the varied fortunes of this small and out-of-the way village – even the Black Death gave it a miss – which later came to attract artists, writers and all those who love the beauty of natural form and the magnetic and enthralling power of water cascading from rocky outcrops and rushing forward towards the valley …
Even had I not been so sleepy by now, Elf’s writing style was a bit on the soporific side and the words began to dance in front of my eyes. I put the book on the bedside table, turned out the light, and Caspar stretched out luxuriously beside me and then relaxed with a long, contented sigh.
11
Wheels within Wheels
Casper was still there when I woke, but once I got up he leaped off the bed and headed for the door to Lavender Cottage, so I closed it after him.
I wondered if Jacob reallydidintend installing a giant cat flap in the door.
Dawn was a tinge of rose in a dark lilac-grey sky, but it soon grew light and promised to be a crisp but sunny day.
After breakfast I dressed for work, in warm layers under a padded waxed cotton gilet of great age, which some visitor had left behind at one of the châteaux I’d worked at and never reclaimed.
