Historical crime novel set in County WEXFORD
Talking Location With Fiona Veitch Smith: 1920s OXFORD
19th November 2021
#TalkingLocatinWith… Fiona Veitch Smith, author of The Crystal Crypt, featuring star sleuth Poppy Denby.
Poppy’s Oxford: a tour of the City of Spires in the 1920s
Daffodils nodded their drooping heads as the motorbike roared past on its way from London to Oxford. As they approached the ancient university city, Poppy looked up through her motoring goggles and took in the handsome, determined jaw of Daniel Rokeby, who was deftly steering the bike and its sidecar over Magdalen Bridge and onto Oxford High Street. On their right were the medieval spires of Magdalen College and on their left, the beautiful Botanic Garden, bursting with the joys of spring.
This was the first time Poppy had been to Oxford…
Set in April 1925, The Crystal Crypt sees reporter sleuth Poppy Denby investigating the mysterious death of a female scientist in a basement laboratory in Oxford. It’s useful as an author to have a central character encountering an environment for the first time – or returning somewhere after a long time of absence – as I can then take on the role of tour guide, introducing my readers to the location as Poppy sees it.
I help my readers visualise Poppy’s travels in her efforts to track down the murderer by providing a period map. I have done this in the five prior Poppy novels with contemporary period maps of London, New York and Newcastle upon Tyne. This time it’s Oxford’s turn.
When Poppy arrives in Oxford her first stop is The White Horse Tavern on Broad Street where she meets the lab assistant of the dead scientist. Readers might recognise The White Horse from re-runs of Lewis and Inspector Morse as it was Morse’s favourite watering hole. This small, atmospheric pub dates back to the 16thC when it was first given a liquor licence under the name The Mermaid. It has been known as The White Horse since around the 1820s. A hundred years later Poppy has fish ‘n chips there. Whether fish ‘n chips was on the menu back then or not, I’m not certain, but I gave her that as that’s what I had when I visited in 2020!
After hearing about the suspected murder, Poppy and her male companion Daniel pop next door to Blackwell’s bookshop. This is the mother shop of all the Blackwells in the UK. The Blackwell family have had a bookshop in Oxford since 1846, and opened the flagship store on Broad Street in 1879. My literary hero, Dorothy L. Sayers, worked at Blackwells in 1916 – 17, in the poetry publishing section, and the space where she worked can be pointed out to modern visitors. The sprawling shop with its accompanying music shop next door (on the other side of The White Horse) is a must-see for bibliophiles visiting Oxford today.
Poppy and Daniel leave Blackwells and they take a walk to the Botanic Garden. The Botanic Garden was opened in 1621 as a place to grow medicinal plants for the faculty of medicine for Magdalen College, just over the High Street. In 1925 when Poppy and Daniel visit, Alden’s Guide to Oxford (1920) would have told them it occupied five acres of land used for a Jewish Burial Ground. Traces of the burial ground still exists, and is now part of the rose garden. Entry to the garden was free in Poppy’s day, as it is today, and she and Daniel wandered past the famous glass houses, through the arboretum and down to the river Cherwell, a route that can still be followed today.
After a heady romantic encounter on the banks of the river, Poppy and Daniel return to London. A few days later, Poppy returns to Oxford on her own to start the investigation proper. She arrives by train and walks to her hotel. The modern Oxford railway station is a dull, utilitarian affair, having been rebuilt in 1971. Nothing to see here, folks. Sorry. But there’s an efficient rail service getting you from London Paddington in under an hour.
Poppy then walks to her hotel. By the time she gets there, she regrets not having taken a taxi, as she has chosen to book a room near the Botanic Garden (in order to bask in memories of The Romantic Encounter) and it is a little further away than she remembered. The Cherwell Hotel is a made-up hotel for the purposes of the novel. However, there are a number of historic hotels in or nearby Oxford city centre for modern visitors. Check here for details.
When there, she hires a bicycle to head out on her investigation. Oxford is famous for its bicycles, both in Poppy’s day and now, and visitors can enjoy touring the city and its surrounds on two wheels. More information on tours here.
The author on steps of the History of Science Museum, 2021
Poppy has a wobbly start, but eventually she manages to master the metal beast and heads off to the History of Science Museum, just across the road from Blackwells and The White Swan, and just in front of the Bodleian Library. It is housed in the Old Ashmolean building, where the Ashmolean museum collection was housed before moving to its present, grand location on Beaumont Street. The Science Museum opened its doors in 1924, but when Poppy visits in 1925 there was still laboratory work going on in the basement. This is based on fact, as the Nobel prize-winning chemist, Dorothy Hodgkin, had a laboratory there in the late 20s and early 30s. The Crystal Crypt is a name I made up for the laboratory, so don’t ask for it or you’ll get curious looks! The basement area is now open to the public as part of the modern museum display.
After interviewing the head of the laboratory, her suspicions aroused that he is definitely hiding something, Poppy gets on her bike, heads up Broad Street and right into Magdalen St, then St Giles and then forking into Woodstock Road. It’s pouring with rain and she is soaked through by the time she gets to the gatehouse of Somerville College. Somerville was one of four ladies’ colleges in Oxford at the time. It was the alma mater of Dorothy L. Sayers (the Lord Peter Wimsey novels), Vera Brittain (Testament of Youth) and scientist Dorothy Hodgkin. Before turning to politics, Margaret Thatcher, another Somerville graduate, was Hodgkin’s research assistant. In 1920 Somerville, along with the other women’s colleges, was able to confer degrees on its graduates for the first time. It is against this backdrop that the victim in The Crystal Crypt, Dr June Leighton, meets her demise.
Having interviewed the principal of Somerville College and found out some troubling information about the last weeks of June Leighton’s life, Poppy gets back on her bike and heads back to Magdalen Street. She stops off at Elliston & Cavell Department Store to buy a dress and shoes for a formal dinner she will attend that evening. According to Alden’s Guide to Oxford that Poppy is carrying with her, Elliston & Cavell is ‘one of the largest and best appointed Suites of Show-rooms in the Provinces: every department being fully stocked with goods of the highest standard of excellence, and in complete harmony with every idea of modern requirements.’ Elliston & Cavell became Debenham’s in 1973 and is still there today.
With her purchases wrapped in brown paper, and placed in her bicycle basket, Poppy heads back to the hotel for lunch. But as she approaches Magdalen Bridge, her wheel hits a pothole and she veers off the road and plummets down a steep bank towards the punt hire jetty under the bridge. She tries to stop, but her brakes fail, and she crashes into the river…
How Poppy survives her accident and tracks down the murderer of Dr June Leighton, is told in The Crystal Crypt, out now in paperback, ebook and audiobook. Join Poppy as she takes you on a tour of Oxford and solves the most dastardly of crimes on the way.
Fiona Veitch Smith
About the author: A lover of Golden Age mysteries and historical fiction, Fiona Veitch Smith’s Poppy Denby Investigates books are set in the roaring 20s. Immersed in the fashion, culture, politics and social challenges of the time, the novels weave intricate mysteries packed with whodunits and red herrings. Fiona, like Poppy, was formerly a journalist, and lives in Newcastle upon Tyne with her husband and teenage daughter. www.poppydenby.com
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