The settings in my next historical book Treacle Moon (which is available on June 23) move from Rome, Italy, to a house on the edge of an English Village Green. Townend Farmhouse was one of the settings used to research this old way of life.

At Townend Farmhouse, which is in the Lake District, England, there is a preservation of a middle-class way of life that is a wonderful step back in time. In the kitchen, above the fireplace, actually within the chimney, they have placed some linen wrapped packages to show visitors how the family used to dry and smoke meat to store it. I assumed they were hams. But the family were sheep farmers and therefore the meat they cured was mutton (from sheep), not pork, and the dried meet they ate was called Macon…

I have not put this in a book, it would take too much explaining as most people will never have heard of it. Ha. Ha. 😆