Castles and Cowsheds (ePub)

Castles and Cowsheds is a factual story set in 19th century Southwark, in the days of the Irish famine and cholera. Nearly every pub is a brothel, apart from The George Inn, which stages cock-fighting parties. Bear-baiting can be found on street corners, along with betting by costermongers. The characters range from aristocrats to starving immigrants. --Father Thomas Doyle tours the world to raise money in order to build St George's Cathedral, south of the stinking silent river - the Thames. He was brave enough to ride on a death cart with 300 cholera-stricken cadavers. Meanwhile, a baby is born to a naked woman on the bare, worm-eaten floorboards of the broken-down hotel where the Kelly family live. Its mother, Maria, has already given birth to three children: Daniel, Felix and Rosa. As the children grow up, Rosa pretends to be Alice in Wonderland, falling down a rabbit hole. Felix Kelly becomes a call boy at the South London Palace of Varieties in Elephant and Castle. Still only ten years old, the talented lad also works as a Song and Dance boy from 7pm to midnight in the London parks. A dirty old Frenchman known locally as 'le Vicomte de Southwark' owns a house near The George Inn, where a little boy known as 'Goldilocks' joins him later. Like Byron, le Vicomte is "e;mad, bad and dangerous to know"e;. The Ohara family has money and their own villa on Bandyleg Walk. The father is a widower; a wharfinger. The two families intermarry. Set in the days of Disraeli, Gladstone and the Crimean War, Castles and Cowsheds will appeal to fans of Victorian history and family sagas.