When Lucas or Anna-Marie travel from Midnight Court to the town they initially travel the long way round by road, down Strand Gate, passing the cemetery, infirmary and the Midnight mill. Blastburn in 1842 (not to scale) with features from Midnight is a Place and Is Underground indicatedįurther, as is the case with Kingston, the sites called Strand Gate, Mickle Gate and Brass Gate aren’t physical gateways any more but thoroughfares. You’ll see I’ve made further assumptions: the River Wash - mentioned in the later novel Is (or Is Underground) - takes the place of the Humber estuary, while the River Tidey (which is mentioned here) I’ve laid over the Hull river from which the town takes its usual name, showing where its waters debouche into the estuary.
Late 19th-century map of Kingston Upon Hull Old Town with Blastburn road names superimposedįinally, I’ve drawn up a map of Blastburn in diagrammatic form, using the Old Town’s street plan as a template. Over a late 19th-century map I’ve placed some of the street names that are mentioned in the novel, following the routes taken by our young protagonists Lucas and Anna-Marie at various stages, such as going to the tax office or to their lodgings. Wenceslas Hollar’s 17th-century map of Kingston shows the Old Town within its walls, with the Tudor fortifications on the east bank of the Hull river ( at the top of his bird’s eye view plan).īy the 18th and 19th centuries the city had expanded outside the now demolished walls, with the moat enlarged to create new docks for increased trade. Wenceslas Hollar’s The Towne of Hull (north is to the left, Hull river at top and Humber right) In fact, I’m going further by basing Blastburn on Hull’s Old Town, the core of the medieval settlement bounded by the river Hull to the east and the Humber estuary to the south. This time I’m taking a closer look at the fictional industrial town of Blastburn, making an assumption that it’s in the region of Kingston upon Hull in East Yorkshire, maybe even contiguous if not actually occupying the same equivalent space. Kingston Upon Hull as Blastburn, in Joan Aiken’s Midnight is a Place (credit here)Īnother post in my series exploring the ins and outs of Joan Aiken’s paracosm Midnight is a Place (1974) set in an alternate Britain she calls Albion.
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