Bagnigge Wells, Explained

Last fall, I wrote a blog called "Whither Bagnigge?" I'd recently written a scene (included in the blog) for The King's Favorite, which was set in a rural town called Bagnigge Wells, located on a branch of the Thames. As is sadly often the case, the rural resort of 1670 where Charles II went swimming with Nell Gwyn was soon after absorbed by London's sprawling growth, with even the river covered over and forgotten. I'd found plenty of references to the place in the past, but it was so long gone that it no longer appeared on any modern (or even 19th century) maps. I asked readers two questions: if they knew exactly where Bagnigge Wells might have been, and also, exactly how it would have been pronounced.

And now, some months later, I've heard from an English gentleman named Robert Mitchell who answered both questions, plus added a family photograph as well. His reply: "If you search for "gwynne place" on wikimedia commons you will find a photograph (shown here) that I have posted that might interest you. Bagnigge is pronounced "Bagg-nidge". The girl on the steps is probably my mum, though we'll never know for sure." Mr. Mitchell's great-grandfather was the landlord of the Bagnigge Wells public house, from whose window the photograph was taken in the early 1920s.

Thank you so much for sharing, Mr. Mitchell! And ain't the great wide world of the internet grand? *G*

Whither Bagnigge Wells

Writing novels set in the past presents its own special challenges. One of the hardest parts is determining exactly how much history you want or need to support your story, and then how much of your “writing time” to invest in research to support that history. Of course this varies from writer to writer, and from book to book, with results that vary from the most mundane “wallpaper history”, set in the indeterminate past where everyone has big houses and wears silk, to more thoughtful books with enough factual background to please a good university press.

I’m a self-proclaimed history nerd. I love history, and I love research, and I’m perfectly happy to wallow in original sources all the day long. This is much of the reason that I’ve shifted my writing from historical romance to historical fiction, where the characters are almost entirely based on historical figures and the plot is driven by fact. For me, that’s more-better-funner writing, about as good as a job can get. But all that lovely research can also become as sticky as the LaBrea Tar Pits, and suck up my time like so many wallowing mastodons.

Which is exactly what happened to me with Bagnigge Wells.

I know this sounds like I’m writing a Nancy Drew mystery (The Secret of the Bagnigge Wells). Actually, my WIP is a historical novel based on the life and times of 17th century actress and royal mistress Nell Gwyn (The King’s Favorite: A Novel of Nell Gwyn & King Charles II). Most of the book takes place in London, and a well-documented 17th century London at that, thanks to the writings of diarists Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, and a surprisingly large number of other surviving letters and journals.

There are many writers fortunate enough to be able to travel to the places their books are set, and be able to walk literally in the characters’ footsteps. Alas, I’m not one of them; I have two college-age children, and that puts a damper on research junkets to England. And, as I’ve also realized, many of the places I’d want to see no longer exist. Not only did the Great Fire of 1666 destroy much of Nell’s London, but another fire, later in the 17th century, claimed most of Charles’s Whitehall Palace, too. What remained of Restoration London has since been absorbed, knocked down, remodeled, bombed, renewed, and rebuilt by successive generations. I've no choice but to rely on the descriptions of others to create my interpretation of the past.

But back to Bagnigge Wells. In book after book about Nell, there are references made to her “summer house” on the Fleet, a bucolic retreat where she and Charles often went to swim, fish, and generally make mischief away from the court. I liked this, and I worked it into the story as the book evolved. I wrote along with some of those big **** in the middle of the scene, astrisks that mean Notes to Self, and are my way of saying, “come back here and put in more when you’ve researched it.”

So with my scene more or less written, I went back to fill in the blanks regarding Bagnigge Wells. Hah. To begin with, I found no mention of the place in my standard 17th diaries, journals, or references books. I figured it had to be within a day’s journey by water of the palace, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on any map, old or new. In fact, to my chagrin, I realized that the earliest mention of the place in connection with Nell was in a book published in 1878 (Old and New London by Walter Thornbury), which had been repeated as gospel in every successive book about Nell. Here’s the passage, in all its high Victorian splendor:

“Bagnigge Wells House was originally the summer residence of Nell Gwyn. Here, upon the Fleet and amid green fields, she entertained Charles and his saturnine brother with concerts and merry breakfasts, in the careless Bohemian way in which that noble specimen of divine right delighted.”

I probably should have tossed the whole scene then and there. Relying on the word of a historian writing more than two centuries after the fact isn’t generally a good idea. But the summer house on the Fleet was certainly plausible, and entirely probable, and besides, I liked the scene, and I didn’t want to give it up. It worked. And I just liked the word "Bagnigge", however it may be pronounced (anyone know for certain?)

And so back I went a-hunting.

What did I learn? That the reason I couldn’t find Bagnigge Wells on any map is that it no longer exists. For that matter, neither does the Fleet. The River Fleet was once one of the major rivers of London, running from its origins on Hampstead Heath, through Kings Cross and Clerkenwell, until it finally emptied into the Thames near Blackfriars.

Bagnigge Wells was located on the Fleet near St. Pancras. The site of two wells known for their healing properties, it may also have been the location of an earlier, abandoned religious order. In Nell’s time, the area was still surrounded by open fields, with only a single public-house (The Pindar of Wakefield) as a landmark, and the river was clear and clean, yet easily traveled back into the heart of London. It was also considered a place with strong royalist tendencies, filled with Charles’s supporters. In other words, the perfect place to escape the 17th century version of the paparazzi.

But as for those “telling details” that writers so cherish: nothing. Not a peep. Everything dealt with Bagnigge Wells in the 18th century, when the healing wells were developed, and the spot became fashionable with the “middling sort”, who came to take the waters, flirt, and play skittles. (To the left is a genre print of "The Bread and Buttery at Bagnigge") But by the early 19th century, the Wells were described as a ruin, with urban sprawl relentlessly approaching. Only the old Pindar had managed to continue the connection with Nell, with a chimney piece that featured the royal arms and a portrait-bust labeled “Eleanor Gwynne, a favorite of Charles II.)

The once-sparkling Fleet had become little better than an open sewer, and by the end of the 18th century, was completely arched over and built upon. The springs, too, vanished, and all that remains today are two streets in the area: Gwynne Place and Wells Street. (For more information, check out The River of Wells.)

I figure I spent the better part of a morning to learn all of this cool stuff, none of which was really of any use to me. In other words, if I wanted to put Nell and Charles at Bagnigge, I’d have to do so without specifics, and to rely more on my imagination than any hard fact. So this, then, is the sum of how Bagnigge Wells is described:

“I vow you can’t catch me, sir,” I taunted, raising my head from the river’s surface only enough so my lips would clear it. “Hey, ho, can’t catch me!”
I gulped as big a breath as I could and plunged deep into the water, swimming low so Charles wouldn’t spy me. Finally my lungs were burning and I could keep under no longer, and I popped up with a splatter, gasping. Swiftly I looked about me for Charles, shoving aside my tangled hair that clung to my face and breasts like duckweed.
All around me was still: the green riverbed, the willows trailing their feathery branches into the water, the few ducks already nesting for the night in the tall grass, their heads tucked demurely beneath their wings. The days were shorter now, making the sky that velvety blue that comes before true dusk, with stars just beginning to spark. The evening mist floated low over the fields beyond the river, softening the horizon. I could hear the first nightingale’s song over the rush of the water, and louder still the racing of my own heart. Our clothes lay where we’d left them on the grass, untidy piles of pale linen, and on top of Charles’s lay two of his piebald spaniels, curled contentedly, I suppose, in his scent. Not far beyond lay the shadowy shape of the house I’d hired for our use for the summer. . . .

That’s it. Was a morning of research to prove I’d have no hard facts worth that paragraph? Was this time I could ever justify well spent to my editor (if I ever had to do so, which, fortunately, writers seldom are called to do)? Or was that morning among my research books more a general refilling of my writerly imagination, whether it generated anything immediately useful? Could it just be chalked up to…fun?

Whether this works (or whither the Wells) remains to be seen, at least until next summer, when The King’s Favorite will be released. But here’s a question for now: do you think you can tell when a writer has enjoyed writing a book? Can you sense if the book was a joy, or a trial? Have you ever read books that in some intangible way felt as if the writer had written under pressure (health, family, financial, or simply an idea that had ceased to be magical), or one that felt so right that the words must have flown from the keyboard?

This Noisy Old World

Writers and noise are not a good combination. While some of us write to carefully chosen music and others prefer as much peaceable silence as is possible, no writer enjoys the general racket of modern life. Nothing can wither a perfectly good visit from a Muse faster than a monstrous trash truck, working its thumping and crashing way up the street. Teenagers cranking up rap music, weed-whackers and power-washers, high-decibel fire sirens and low-flying aircraft, all play havoc with writerly concentration.

And there’s at least one Wench (who, me?) who has been known to charge outside in her bathrobe to confront mystified lawn-crews with leaf-blowers about their misguided commitment to blast every last blade of new-mown grass to ear-splitting oblivion.

Modern folk like to think of this general din as one of the banes of contemporary life, another of our special crosses to bear for being so technologically advanced. “Noise pollution”, we call it, a splendidly polysyllabic term for something our more peaceful great-grandparents wouldn’t recognize.

Ah, but we history-geeks know otherwise. The past –– especially the urban past –– was one noisy place. True, the noises were a very different sort, but the distraction was there just the same. A famous 18th century illustration by William Hogarth called “The Enraged Musician” shows an earlier creative-type, pitifully tormented by the sounds of the London street outside his open window.

I’ve always tried hard to incorporate sound into my writing, one more way to evoke the past. Yet it seems my imagination has fallen far short of reality. I’ve just discovered a splendid new non-history book (oh, be still my history-nerd heart!) called Hubbub : Filth, Noise, & Stench in England, 1600-1770 by Emily Cockayne (Yale University Press, 2007).

This is not history for the faint of heart, or the weak of stomach, either. (All the following examples and quotes come from Hubbub.) Stuart & Georgian Londoners would have had to contend with constant traffic noise: metal-bound wheels and shod horses against paving stones, squeaking, creaking wagons and carriages, trumpets to herald arrivals and departures of coaches, and the bellowed oaths of drivers and footmen. Traffic noise was so bad that by the late 18th century, city churches and court houses were being designed without windows on the street levels in an attempt to quiet the spaces within.

Each morning terrified livestock was herded through the streets to market and slaughter, but hundreds of other unneutered animals ran wild through the city: stray dogs, spit dogs, and family pets alike played and barked and fought. Squabbling cats were also everywhere. So were goats and squealing pigs, and even city-dwellers were awakened by roosters before dawn. Early morning was also the time when the dog-skinners (I cannot begin to fathom a market for dog-skins, but then our ancestors were far more unsentimentally resourceful than we) were chasing down yelping strays.

Peddlers and vendors of every kind shouted their wares, striving to outdo one another. Apparently the pleasing sing-song cries of legend often degenerated into wordless roars. Milk-sellers were particularly known for their shrillness, and the writer Joseph Addison noted one seller who became infamous for her “inarticulate scream.” There were also frequent noisy brawls between vendors over sales turf, fights that were encouraged as free sport by cheering spectators.

Scores of church bells in the city rang for services, deaths, fires, and celebrations, and to tell the time. Street musicians played fiddles, whistles, flutes, and hurdy-gurdys, or simply sang; a loud, piercing voice was highly prized. Puppet shows, jugglers, acrobats, and other street performers added another layer of sound. Trumpets and drums were used to “drum up” an audience, and were also employed by the recruitment officers for the navy and the army outside of taverns. Politicians, charlatans, and itinerant preachers alike made impromptu speeches on street-corners and from balconies and windows.

Land and real estate was valuable, and most houses for rich and poor alike shared common walls. Without the muffle of 21st century curtains, sound-proof tiles, or wall-to-wall carpeting, voices echoed freely in most rooms and into the next. Add to that the open windows (before modern houses became so hermetically sealed for “climate control”), and there wouldn’t have been many secrets left between neighbors.

London was a growing city, and the sounds of construction were everywhere: hammering and sawing carpenters and roofers may not have had high-pitched power-tools, but they still contributed their share of noise. Other trades that involved striking like blacksmiths, masons, tinsmiths, coopers and coppersmiths added the clanging sounds of hammers on metal, while the rumbling grinding of mill-wheels was literally so deafening that the stereotypical miller had lost his hearing entirely.

The “great guns” (cannons) near the Tower of London were fired to celebrate royal births, weddings, victories, and other holidays. Shooting off muskets was a more common “noisemaker” that needed little excuse, and grand displays of fireworks (from the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranleigh as well as for civic displays) routinely exploded into the night sky over the city. More ominously, the broadsides exchanged at sea between the Dutch and English ships during the Dutch wars of the late 17th century were so loud that they could clearly be heard like distant thunder in London.

Things weren’t much quieter after dark, either. Watchmen with rattles or bells cried the hour throughout the night. “I start every hour from my sleep,” complained one visitor, “at the horrid noise of the watchmen bawling the hour through every street, and thundering at every door; a set of useless fellows, who serve no other purpose but that of disturbing the repose of the inhabitants.” Curfews were often created, and seldom enforced.

And in a city full of ale-houses, rumshops, and taverns that were serving customers well past midnight, those celebrants stumbling home in the wee hours contributed to the noise, too. “Great hallowing and whooping in the Fields,” noted one sleep-deprived gentleman, “by such Persons who have spent the Day Abroad, and are now returning home Drunk.”

Relative peace doesn’t seem to have arrived until three or so in the morning, when the “Whores, Bullies, and Thieves have retir’d to their Apartments; noisy drunken Mechanicks are got to their Lodgings; Coachmen, Watermen, and Soldiers are mostly asleep.” But by then, it’s not long until dawn, when the markets and trades come back to exuberant life, and begin the whole day’s cycle all over again.

You know, maybe those leaf blowers aren’t so very bad after all . . . .

The Writer's Life, aka The View from the IceWorks Parking Lot

Most writers have offices. Beautiful, luxurious offices, with a splendid view from the keyboard, an ergonomically comfy chair, and an antique desk, surrounded by custom bookcases. Or functional but private offices, tucked away in a corner of the basement or attic. Perhaps even a space rented in an office building, with a lawyer on one side and a dentist on the other, or the creme-de-la-creme of an oak-paneled retreat overlooking the sea.

And what special place, pray, does my laptop like to call home? The Pepsi-spotted driver’s seat of my ’97 Camry station wagon.

My writing career and my daughter are both sixteen years old. In that time, I’ve been published both as Susan Holloway Scott and as Miranda Jarrett, but like many other women writers, my other pseudonym has fewer syllables, but a lot more responsibilities: Mom. Along with the usual nurturing maternal skills like baking cookies, fixing broken zippers, and finding a place that sells poster board for a social studies project at 10:30 p.m. the night before it’s due, Mom is most often The Driver.

In addition to all the usual suburban kid stuff, my son and daughter both play ice hockey. (My daughter began as a competitive figure skater, seduced by the lure of gold medals and sparkly dresses, but when she grew too tall to maneuver triple-jumps, she, too, crossed over to the dark side of hockey.) Like most kid sports these days, ice hockey is a year-round activity, with practices, games, tournaments, try-outs, clinics, and camps, and like most good hockey moms, I’m the one who gets them to the ice rink. Hour after hour, season after season, year after year, I’m there. Which is why I’ve come to appreciate my car as my office, the one place where Mom and Writer can peacefully morph into one hyper-productive super-being.

First of all, there are no distractions. Ice rinks are generally built in places where land is cheap and scenic vistas are rare. Sitting in a rink lot, I’ll never be distracted by anything more than a nearby U-Store-It or aluminum siding warehouse. Children are temporarily their coaches’ problems, not mine. Cell phone reception is usually lousy, so no one calls me, or I them. I can’t get sidetracked by compulsively checking one more research book. Best of all, there’s no internet in my car, no e-mail begging to be read or web sites to be checked. There’s only me, my keyboard, my characters, and my story.

Sometimes this change of location will unlock a tough plot problem. I know the common wisdom is to have one constant place for work, so your feeble mind can be trained to accept that when you’re in your designated workplace, you have to buckle down. But for me moving my laptop to different places keeps my writing fresh; it’s only when I’m stuck in one room for a long period of time (and without a cupholder, too) that I find myself abandoned by inspiration.

And sometimes, too, it’s not just the location that needs to change, but the process. A switch from the laptop to handwriting on a pad can be enough of a jolt that the words miraculously return to my story, just where I want them, the little devils.

In my parking lot office, deadlines are hard and fast. Hockey practices are always the same length of time, and I know exactly when my writing-time is going to end. I set myself a goal of finishing a certain scene, or writing so many words, and realizing that I only have ninety minutes to finish tricks me into being more productive.

When I’m stuck on a bit of dialogue, I like to try speaking it out loud. Somehow hearing the words makes it easier to fix what’s wrong. Talking to myself in the car is a bit weird, true, but with no one else to hear me, who’s to know?

And perhaps most useful of all, is the chance to do . . . nothing. Especially when a book is due and my editor’s sending me cheerfully expectant e-mails, it’s easy to push and push and push to get the end, no matter what it takes. Sometimes what it takes is simply to take a break. I can’t exactly stop to smell the flowers (not in a car perpetually blighted by eau du hockey-bag), but I can put the seat back and stare up at the clouds or the stars, and give myself full permission to think about absolutely nothing at all.

Ahh, the glories of home-ice advantage!