Reposting this observational blog here to tie-up with this short fantasy horror competition; 1500-200 words https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/competitions/current-competitions
Thanks for the inspiration, DCtN!
The idea of paintings and pictures as windows and doors into other worlds is fairly common in literature.
From MR James’ The Mezzotint to Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, pictures reveal secrets that are hidden from the real world; from Princess Rosamund in George MacDonald’s The Lost Princess to Edmund and Lucy Pevensie and their cousin Eustace Scrubb in CS Lewis’ The Dawn Treader, children step – or tumble – through into other worlds and places.
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As any historian would tell you most places are named after something or someone pertinent to the area, so we can only surmise that once upon a time a pie maker or baker of some sort worked from this court. Such names are great pointers in time, don’t you think? Although some English villages may take their name from previous Saxon or Roman inhabitants many of our street, land and alley names deffo come from what went on down them. If you’re looking for a vicar for example, just head off to Church Lane. Worried about buying a house on River Street? There’s a reason it’s called River Street. These days it’s the Councils who name our streets and in the case of new developments, the developer themselves have an input. How Dull. Dull. Dull. Dull. I once lived in a house where the tiny slip of road at the front was called Pounda. Pounda, it was said, was the sound the cattle made as they pounded through the village from field to farm at milking time. Might all be claptrap of course, but it works. We have Horse Fairs, Bullrings, Market Squares, Milk Lanes and Bakers Rows littered across the land. Lifted from 
But I digress. Hen and Chicken Court, just off Fleet Street. A fairly obvious medieval name for a court or lane, I thought, but was amazed when a google search threw up information about the very same place as being where – allegedly – Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber practiced. Well who’d have thought. Talk about material for a short story. For those new to the ghastly tale of Sweeny Todd, is was said that whilst shaving his customers he would slit their throats and hand their bodies over to his lover who, clearly counting the pennies, would take the best bits and serve them up in her pies. Blackadder’s Mrs Miggins will never seem the same again. Documents tell us that Mr Todd was a real person, being born in 1759 in Stepney, East London, and was hanged for a murder – whether he really did murder more than one person – his customers in this case – and have them wrapped in short crust pastry and gravy – is another matter,
but it makes for a great urban myth that is still going strong today. Funny too, that it is a two minute walk from The Royal Courts of Justice.
