This is my first piece of creative writing since school. I’ll not pretend otherwise.

Anndale has existed in my head for over a year now, growing through hundreds of live streams into something far bigger than that first rustic village with a road through the middle - and bigger than I ever imagined! Characters formed, histories suggested themselves, and eventually the world started insisting it be begun to be written down.

This story is where I gave in to that insistence.

Brambles and Blackbirds is an origin story of sorts. How Anndale came to be what it is, told the way I thought it needed to be told. Over a pint, by a fire, by someone who won’t be around to tell it much longer.

It’s roughly 7,700 words, so make yourself comfortable. A warm drink (or a beer) is recommended.

I hope you enjoy your visit and this Tale of Anndale.

Andy

Brambles and Blackbirds: An Anndale Short Story

Andy Gray

Tales from Anndale

© Andy Gray 2026

A Note on Anndale

Anndale is a place out of time, to our understanding of a recognised time period from our past anyway. A particular age, year or date may be mentioned, but do not equate those years in reference to our history too closely.

To me, it has always had the feel of late Georgian or early-mid Victorian England, but without the fashions of the time. It is a pre-mechanisation, a pre-heavy industry time, with no mass transit or technology, and no combustion engines ...maybe steam though. Travelling is done on foot or by horse and cart, but more modern items and ways may get sprinkled into the mix.

Brambles & Blackbirds

Vicious bramble vines leap, their tiny prongs catching skin and dragging across the flesh, leaving a pink trail that will soon begin to weep red.

“Hey watch it Ben, that could’ve been my face!” Young Thomas Cooper called out, annoyed at his friend.

“Well Thomas, stand back and stop pulling at them when I’m cutting then!” the forester’s boy Ben Woodley called back in a short frustrated tone. “Also, if you rolled down your shirt sleeves they’ll not get you”, he shook his head.

“You wanted some help!?” Thomas retorted.

“Aye, help would be lovely right now...” Ben’s voice quickly tailed off to a quieter mutter under his breath knowing he shouldn’t be annoyed with his friend, Thomas was a brewer not a forester. More akin to hauling sacks of grain, manhandling barrels, bottles and produce around the brewery. Strong as an ox and already seemingly an alchemist when it comes to beer production, but not blessed with much practical sense.

“These damn brambles are wicked this year, you’d think the church would have kept them under better control,” huffed Thomas, continuing to check his arm that stung from the rasping pin pricks.

“Aye. Dad said this part of the churchyard has been overgrown for years,” grumbled Ben, frustrated that the job of clearing it all had fallen to him after years of neglect.

A warm summer’s Sunday afternoon passed in Anndale, the gentle lap of water could be heard down towards the dock beyond the walls of St Martin’s churchyard. The murmur of chat from Sunday drinks drifted across the lane from the Fox and Feathers as birds chirped and swooped in the strong afternoon sun.

The two teenage boys hacked and dragged the long vines from the area throughout the afternoon. As Ben hacked deeper, the vines changed from the fresh growth of this summer to thick, browned, dead sticks from years past. Ben expertly swung his sharp sickle slicing through the thick brush. His arm suddenly jarred numb, the tool loudly pinged as it made contact with something hard.

“God damn it!” Ben instinctively held his right forearm as it pulsed from the impact.
“Careful with your words Ben, he’ll strike you down!” Thomas joked, raising his eyes to the sky. “What did you hit?”

“Stone obviously! We’re in a churchyard you oaf,” Ben rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of the query. “It’ll be an old headstone I guess”.

Over the next hour they cleared the area around this stone. It was a fallen squared sandstone block, tapered slightly. About five feet high if it was standing. Now though, it was half buried in the hard dry soil. Brushing off the dusty soil after the two strong young men hauled it back into its upright position revealed traces of engraving, but the sandstone was weathered so much that neither of the boys could make out any name or dates. What looked like the letter “L” started one line before erosion had wiped the rest away. Some other motifs must have been carved into the stone, but they too had faded beyond recognition.

“I wonder why this is by itself, over here?” Thomas queried. Not a question to Ben but more speculatively asking the warm air drifting over his face.

“Good job boys!” a shrill ladies voice called from the corner of the church.“This is looking splendid. Such an improvement! Reverend Green will be impressed!”
“Oh hi, Mrs Potts” Ben waved to her, grime and sweat running from his brow.

“Not a bad result from an afternoon’s work, even with Thomas slowing me down,” he said with a smirk.

“Hey! You arse!” Thomas shot back.

“Careful, he might strike you down with language like that!” Ben laughed, gesturing with a pointed finger to the sky.

Thomas excitedly showed the widowed church organist, Mrs Potts, the large, fallen, carved stone before them. He hoped she’d know something about it. “I didn’t even know it was there, this corner has been wild for as long as I’ve lived in Anndale – and that’s been some years now!” Thomas’ shoulders sagged with disappointment, having hoped for an instant explanation.

“I’ve never seen any reference of it in the church records,” Mrs Potts pondered for a moment, “how about you ask Old Tom, he’s full of tales, he might know something about it, and if he doesn’t, I’m sure he’ll make something up about it to entertain you!” She chuckled to herself thinking about the tales Old Tom had spouted over the years, many of which she doubted their truth.

“I’ll do that!” Thomas was now excited.

The bright and breezy, bespectacled, Mrs Potts turned, and in her positive aura seemingly skipped away down the church path, even though she was in her fifties.

“You can knock off now Thomas, I can handle the clean up.” Ben lent on the hay fork he was using to manoeuvre the nasty vines. “Go and find your stories, I’ll get this stuff burnt up before sundown. But put a pint behind the bar for me for later, I’ll be ready for a beer by then – and also, make sure Mary serves you. George will forget! He always does. That place would be empty in a day without Mary there to keep him right!”

As Thomas walked out through the gates of St Martin’s he could already hear the crackle of flames eating the old dry undergrowth they’d piled up.

The Fox and Feathers, the beating heart of Anndale’s community, had been here for as long as anyone knew. Built of random rubble stone, its painted white walls gleamed in the late afternoon sun. The small window panes of bulbous glass distorted views from inside and to those looking in. A bolthole to escape to and forget time existed, spending time with friends talking about the ills of the world or bantering about impressive vegetables. Also regular singalongs when the frivolity got raucous enough for the ivories to be tinkled, were a regular occurrence.

The heavy front door was always a-jar, welcoming both locals and travellers in. Greeting them were the smells of aromatic beers and freshly made pies of all concoctions. On turning right in the entrance, you are brought into the main woodenclad lounge.

On this day, the inside of the pub was quieter than normal as many of the patrons were, and had been for most of the afternoon, outside in the sun. Even though it was August, the fire still quietly smoldered in the grand fireplace on the far wall. At the end of the bar hunched over an almost empty pint glass was a man in his eighties. Scraggly grey hair unkemptly protruding from under his tweed cap. A long overcoat hanging down to the floor sat on “his” barstool. Old Tom. The oldest resident of Anndale, humourously rumoured to be well preserved from all the alcohol consumed over his years, and the person you went to to find out about anything or anyone’s past.

The burly George Fletcher, landlord of the Fox and Feathers for the last seventeen years entered the area behind the bar. “Ah young Cooper! Grand day isn’t it? What’ll it be?” A greeting, small talk and getting sales in one sentence. George really was skilled at keeping everything fluid in more than one way, getting coins from patrons and keeping them well watered ...to get more coins out of them!

“Pint of Special please George, fill Tom’s glass too, looks like he’s getting low there.”

“Why thank you, young Sir!” the old man nodded to Thomas from his perch at the end of the bar.

“Oh and George, put a pint behind the bar for Ben, he’ll be in later once he’s finished up at the churchyard.”

Mary Fletcher appeared behind her husband from the door to the pub’s kitchen. “Thomas, I’ll remember that one for Ben dear. I know this oaf here will forget!” she said, poking her husband in the ribs.

“Woman! I’ll remember. I still remember that twenty one pound sea trout I caught from the dock when I was fourteen. So I can remember one simple drink order!”

“Oh hush you, just accept you get forgetful at times.” Mary lovingly tapped her husband on the nose with a single soft finger. “Or at least admit you should write it down.” She smiled warmly and gave him another playful poke, this time to the belly.

George pulled on the handles dispensing the beer into the two glass tankards as Thomas approached his older namesake.

“Tom?...” he asked in a gentle tone, “Ben and I have been clearing an area in the Churchyard that was all overgrown and we hit a large stone”.

“Oh aye?” Old Tom’s brows raised.

“It’s been dressed, all squared up, tapers in a bit. It’s had writing on it ..but it’s all eroded from what we can see. I was just wondering if you knew anything about it, or what it could be for?”

“That rough part in the south west corner of the churchyard?” Old Tom queried as he held his chin.

“I remember that area always being rough. It was never kept neat, but still never bushy and overgrown like it’s been a while now. Can’t think of seeing a large stone there though...” “Wait!” Old Tom’s eyes widened and brightened. “We cut an old beech tree down there!” the old man’s posture straightened, shoulders rolled back as if remembering the strength he once had, ready to cut the tree down again. “I’d have been, maybe fifteen. I just did some clearing up after the main trunk was felled, but I remember it being a big occasion with half the village watching on.”

“What was it cut down for?”

“Old age or damage I presume. Your mate the forester will tell you a beech typically gets to a hundred and fifty years, and being exposed up on church hill it’ll been battered by every easterly wind going, so it’ll have been doing well to be that old.”

“So was there a stone there then?” Thomas broke in on the old man’s memory dredging as he saw faces of friends and family on that day. His mother with a picnic basket in the churchyard. His younger siblings eating cake and fruit. The strong arms of his father taking hold of the saw that cut the trunk. Standing beside his best friend Richard when the tree creaked and broke as it was felled in the summer sun.

Old Tom coughed as he returned to seventy years later. “Oh yes, the stone. Can’t for the life of me remember,” he chucked. “Maybe George is having an effect on me!”

“I heard that!” a gruff voice called from behind the door into the kitchen.

Old Tom gave young Tom a wink and a smile.

“You know, Master brewer, there was a memorial in the Churchyard, my grandfather told me about it. He said it was to do with the Dryhton’s and their efforts to rebuild Anndale”.

“Rebuild?”

“Aye lad, did you not know that almost all you see around you had to be rebuilt?”

“Rebuilt for what?”

“What did old Riddell teach you in that school?! Or rather, not teach you?!” Old Tom’s disappointment was etched on his face as Thomas shrugged. The realisation that he alone was a tie back to what had preceded them in this idyllic place hurt him in his chest.
“I swear someone needs to write down everything I tell folk, or it’s going to be all lost!” Again, he pictured his warm, loving mother walking in summer sunshine with him and his siblings, the sadness he felt that he alone was the last person alive who remembered her. A life of love and kindness will be truly gone when Tom’s memory can no longer conjure his vision of her.

“Maybe you’d like that job, Thomas? Write it all down before I’m gone?” The old man suggested, placing a hopeful hand on Thomas’ arm.

“Maybe...” Thomas really didn’t want to commit to anything, life was busy enough at the brewery.

Old Tom suggested they take up a place in the corner by the fireplace. “Ye don’t want to be sat on those hard barstools for a history lesson like this my lad!” he’d said.

The older of the Toms had also ordered one of Mary’s steak pies, to be brought out when it was ready. He picked up a knife and fork from the cutlery drawer on the bar.

“Now, before I get too deep into this, this was all a long time ago, longer than I’ve been alive my lad. These are bits of tales that have been handed down. But there’ll be a lot of records about it in the estate papers up at Dryhton Hall if you’d want to know far more.”

Thomas Cooper, eldest son of Samuel Cooper the village’s brewer, cradled his full glass of beer in his hands listening to the old fella begin his tale of the devastation that, Anndale as we know it, rose from.

Some time in the past...

Early September. The beech lined track through the East Woods is damp after a brief shower of rain. Summer is coming to a close, the busy skies began to quieten as some birds had begun their migration away for the coming winter. The fresh greens have started to fade, replaced with a gentle browning of bracken, the heather on the hill to the west has returned to its dull brown after the brief flash of purple and pinks of August. Leaves have not yet fallen, but are changing. Soon they’ll be showing their annual flourish of autumn beauty. The mornings are later, evenings earlier and the sun is cooler.

Leaving the woodland track into the open countryside. A mix of Swallows and House Martins wheel this way and that overhead on the edge of the woods. Peter breathed in deeply as the village came into view stepping from the edge of the woodland path. The church tower, the windmill turning and the manor house on the hill all protruding above the trees surrounding the village before him in the gentle valley.

Returning on foot accompanied by his hound Billy after two days checking over his sheep and a handful of goats that he grazed out east, by the ruins of Stenholme Castle.

All was peaceful descending from the woodlands into the pasture below where the land was being worked following harvest. Some plots still had corn stacks to collect, some were ploughed, James Stollen guided his heavy horses dragging the plough on his part of the productive land surrounding the heart of the village. Soon, next year’s corn will be sown and seemingly immediately germinated and turning the land green again.

Peter doffed his cap to James as he walked by, obedient Billy by his side. “You best get a move on!” Peter called across the paddock as the plough’s chains and horses harnesses jangled with their work tearing at the ground. “Storm coming, you could feel it out there” he gestured with a point towards the path he’d come. James gave him a wave, maybe he didn’t hear above the din of the plough and horses.

As the shepherd and his hound reached the pub having walked along Church Lane, Billy suddenly dived towards the back door of the Black Fox and disappeared through it into the darkness before Peter could react.

“Billy! Here!” Peter called.

Stepping to chase Billy from the pub, Peter stopped as something sounding like thunder came from the main street at the front of the Black Fox. He stepped around the corner to see a large black horse bounding towards him.

“Grab him! Grab him! – Shadowwww!” a boy called from behind him running as fast as he could.

The flighty horse darted around the market stalls with no one doing anything except turning around to see what was happening or staying well out of the way.

“Peter! Grab him!” The boy had seen Peter appearing from around Church Lane.

Shadow, a fifteen hand stallion bounced and bucked as it approached the corner of the lane and the shepherd steeling himself to grab its reins.

With minimal fuss Peter took hold of the horse‘s headcollar to control it and began to soothe the glistening black beast when stable boy Henry caught up.

Breathing heavily and flustered having lost control of his horse “Thanks... Thanks Mister Peter.” Henry sucked in another lung of air, trying to redeem his composure. “Sorry...” heaving another breath, “he got spooked and just took off.”

“It’s alright Henry, we’ve got him now,” Peter gave the young lad a comforting smile and nod. “Storms coming Henry. You could feel it when I was coming back from the eastern pastures.” Peter cast an eye east to the skies far beyond Church Lane, “best get him secured back in the stable.”

“Maybe that’s what’s got ‘im flighty, Peter? Bess was getting twitchy too.”

“You have good instincts, Henry. Trust them.” Peter firmly patted the village’s stable lad on his shoulder, “Make sure they’re secured and settled, the aches in my bones are telling me this storm is going to be a bad one.”

“This is making me so late. Lord Dryhton wanted me to go up to the Manor stables and brush down his three mares before nightfall!” Henry was nervous about disappointing the Lord.

Peter, knowing the Lord Alec’s manner, looked around anxiously. “Henry, by all means try, but if you don’t get them done, I wouldn’t worry. By morning I think we’ll be relieved that the village has such a dependable stable lad as yourself. He’ll see right, don’t worry yourself. Get the horses secure, I’ll check in on you later.”

Having watched Henry walk Shadow down Stable Row, Peter dragged Billy from the pub’s kitchen where the maids had been petting him and the cooks fed him chunks of bread and butter. He scolded Billy as they left the village and headed to Home Farm. Billy loped along in the soft grass, tongue hanging and sniffing the air oblivious to his master’s continued protestations. All he knew was he’d soon be getting fed, more head petting and sleeping in his bed by the fire.

After a walk of the farm buildings to check them over, as he always did after being away out east for a few days, Peter headed for the farmhouse. Shelly, his devoted wife of 15 years, had cooked him a hearty supper to welcome him home. Peter didn’t really enjoy it because of a darkness hanging in his mind. He stepped out into the garden as the breeze picked up, branches moving, shed doors rattling and lanterns waving on the road to the village.

With the September light waning, Peter returned inside. “Best check on Henry,” he muttered walking back into the dimly lit, but warm, kitchen.

“Bring him up here Peter,” Shelly softly pleaded to him. “There’s plenty of broth to feed him with and the fire’s going, he’ll be much more comfortable here than in that old stable.” Her caring, motherly tone was something that even softened the hardened shepherd back in their courting days.

“I know what that lad’s like. Fiercely independent, just like his poor mum.” There was a pause as he remembered the last time he saw her. Peter continued, “I’ll try, Shelly my dear.” Putting an arm around her and kissing her gruffly on the forehead, “I’ll try.”

Rain began with a stronger breeze, Peter wrapped himself with his coat, lantern in hand and headed down the lane, back into the village. The wind whipped between a steady breeze and strong gusts that checked a regular stride pattern. As the village approached, the rain came much heavier.

Entering the village, Peter heard raised voices, they were shouting. Not of instruction above the din of the weather, but of hatred. Hatred toward another.

Turning down Stable Row, Peter was met by a red faced and visibly seething Lord Alexander Dryhton. Brow furrowed, eyes narrowed and skin flushed bright red.

“Out my way, Shepherd!” he snapped and barged past, throwing arms aloft striding away along a near deserted main street. Water splashing from below his usually pristine tall black riding boots, his dark coat tails flailing along behind him.

“Good day to you too, my Lord,” Peter muttered condescendingly. Thinking to himself, “you’ll get your comeuppance some day...” flexing his fingers as if ready to throw a punch.

In the rain, sat hunched over in the wet ground leaning against the wall of the stable, was Henry. Disheveled and coatless, his damp shirt clinging to his skinny torso.

“Henry! Get up out of there, get inside out of this rain!” Peter exclaimed, rushing over to him.

Hunching beside the boy, “What’d he do?” he asked, concerned.

Henry gasping for breaths between sobs, blurted out a garbled “He shouted and shouted at me for not turning up to work his horses. I tri.. I tried to tell him I was preparing for the storm and that everything was going wrong because every horse in the village was spooked,” he sobbed more. “He wasn’t listening. He struck me... Struck me with his glove... In my face”, he sobbed again.

Peter could see the welt high on the boy’s cheek.

“I’ll...” Angered, Peter bit his tongue to stop himself saying anything more against the Lord but was incensed. “I’m going to have words with his Lordship tomorrow,” he said through clenched teeth. “I rue the day when Lord Theodore Dryhton gifted this place to his wretched son. Had it been Lady Anne...” he sighed, without finishing the sentence or even the thought. Pulling on the boy’s shoulder, “Come on, get inside lad, let’s get something dry on you.”

The two horses, Shadow and Bess, had been joined by the Taylor family’s packhorse, Patch. It often sheltered here thanks to Peter’s persuasion that it needed to be among other horses when not on the road travelling. They all seemed unsettled, as they were neighing, whinnying and restlessly moving around in their individual stable berths. Only their equine senses knew whether it was the wind that was whistling past the yard, or the obnoxious man who’d been there not five minutes previously, that had them upset.

Henry pulled off his soaking grey shirt and hung it in front of the tiny stove that cast an orange glow in his home. It was not much of a home, simply a part of the stable turned over to store supplies, food and tools. Henry scuttled up a ladder to a boarded area above the horses where he slept. Pulling on an equally grey but dry shirt he also dragged a heavy woollen blanket down the ladder ready to spend his night wrapped in it close to his fire. Henry sat on a stool inches in front of the glowing stove, he looked up with watery eyes to Peter. “I’ll be fine,” he said, trying to convince himself after the demoralising few minutes. “I just need my horses. Then I can cope with whatever else.”

“Sure Lad?” Peter quizzed.

“Aye,” he replied.

“Shelly said I should bring you back to ours. We can make space at the farm for you for the night?”

“The horses need me, especially on a night like this.”

“Aye, maybe you’re right, or maybe that you need those horses,” Peter said with a soft smile.

A sudden gust brought a small bird crashing into the stable hitting the central stanchion between Bess and Shadow. A wet blackbird lay on its back twitching a leg.

“Knocked himself out!” Peter joked.

Henry was already darting past Peter scooping up the startled bird, checking it over for signs of damage.

“You really are one for caring for animals, aren’t you Henry?”

Holding the bird snugly in his hand close to the warmth of his chest Henry said to Peter, “Pass me that rag over there,” pointing to material on a shelf in the corner.

“I’ll make it a bed up in the corner,” Henry hinted with a nod of the head towards the wallhead in the corner of his quarters. “Hopefully it’ll not want to fly right out back into this weather when it comes round.”

Passing the rag to Henry, “Okay, I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything, just come up to the house. This storm isn’t barely here yet. So you be careful, okay?” Peter gently pleaded. “Anything! You come up to Home Farm, no matter the time, just come. Yes?”

“Aye.” Henry wasn’t really listening; he was fully focused on the bird in his hand. He was also glad Peter didn’t force him to go to Home Farm. His place was with his horses. He was never going to let Shadow out of his sight. The horse was the only part of his family he still had.

Peter pulled his coat tight. He took in a look at Henry bathed in the warm orange glow from his small stove, smiled to himself, and stepped out into the wind and the rain. The weather blasted his face as he walked into it. The streets were turning very muddy. Light flickered in windows along Stable Row as candle flames danced in the drafts of each home. Looking along main street toward the Black Fox and marketplace, lanterns swung violently and market stalls rocked in the strengthening wind. Walking back to Home Farm, Peter was unsteady on his feet. Often the wind blew him so that he stumbled to the side. In the distance he could hear the cartshed door banging in the wind as it swung open and shut. He thought, “Need to tie that shut or I’m going to be making a new door,” as he grimaced against the driving wind and rain.

Ripped out of a dream, Peter woke suddenly to the sound of glass smashing. Billy barked loudly downstairs in the kitchen.

“Hush Billy!” Peter called into the darkness. He and Shelly now sat upright hearing the wind howling and banging somewhere in the house, “Sounded like a window going.”

Billy continued barking.

“I best see what the damage is. You stay here, pet.” patting her thigh as he swung himself out of the sheets, pulled on his boots and lit the oil lamp by their bed.

Halfway down the stairs, there was a rumble then a loud crash which shook the old farmhouse. Billy’s barking stopped abruptly.

“Shelly?... You okay up there?” He called out to his wife with concern.

Faintly from their bedroom he was relieved to hear, “Yes! Peter, what was that?”

“Billy?!” Peter called out as he rushed down the stairs, panicked at the dog’s sudden silence.

Lifting the latch on the heavy kitchen door and pushing it open. A thick cloud of dust and soot hit Peter square in the face. It all billowed around him and into the hallway. A choking blackness spreading through the downstairs. Emerging from the gloom, at knee height, was a dusty looking mutt blinking and coughing sharply as he wandered into the hallway.

“Bloody hell, Billy!” Even with dust hanging thick in the air, Peter could see that the large kitchen fireplace had collapsed. A freshness swept through the kitchen. Wind! The inside of the kitchen was now open to the elements.

The sound of wind howling and noises of masonry and tiles moving on the roof had Peter rooted to the spot. Shelly appeared at his side. Her grasping at his arm brought him back to the here and now.

“Shelly, we need to get out of here, it’s not safe!” His breathing rhythm and forceful tone gave away his worry. “Get a coat, and get out. The granary will have to do ‘til morning.”

Stumbling around in the darkness and debris, they both rushed to gather their warm outdoor clothes that hung by the back door, and out they went into the wild weather, leaving their home behind with only the clothes on their back and the lantern Peter grabbed. Crossing the yard, as it swept through the woods beyond the farm, the wind screamed like a thousand tortured souls. Billy ran out ahead of Peter and Shelley, rushing to get back in shelter within the old stone steading.

Peter’s lantern light flickered, showing his squinting face bracing against the wind and rain. The desperate thoughts of them not having a home by morning, maybe all their possessions destroyed, the expense of repair. It made Peter’s breathing short with worry. They did still have each other though.

Opening the heavy door to the granary, the wind that followed the three into the building disturbed the fine flour dust causing it to hang in the air. It also blew holes in dusty spiderwebs strung in corners and between timbers. The granary part of the steading was solidly built of stone going back hundreds of years. Enormously thick walls with a low angle slate roof. An old, ornately carved range lay dusty at one end.

“This may be home for a while my dear,” Peter ran the back of his finger down his wife’s tear stained cheek.

Though the wind entered with them, after years of storage of wheat and corn, everything in the granary was still covered in a fine layer of dirty white flour. The grinding of corn by hand helped build up this layer too. Peter considered how much brushing up it would take to clear it all if it was to become their temporary home.

Peter and Shelly huddled worried together on sacks of grain with Billy beside them on the cobbled floor as the storm continued to rage outside. Cracks of wood splintering with the constant howl of wind and the occasional blaring of cattle outside, distressed even Billy who whined at his master. Peter’s heart hung heavy, imagining the damage and work that would be needed once the storm passed. “What state will the farm be in?” It was a thought that worried Peter for hours.

He held Shelly tightly to him until the first light of morning.

As the world transitioned from dark to the earliest of light, the wind calmed. By the time the sky changed from the dark greys to its early pastel colours of pinks, oranges and an otherworldly blue, the storm had passed. Conditions could be described as blustery.

Though long before the first pinks had appeared, Peter had circuited the farm buildings to check for damage. The building structures of the steading, at first appraisal, seemed to have been relatively unscathed. Doors and gates had been ripped off in the violence, roofs were thankfully intact. Some fencing was down and therefore some livestock to find. Peter imagined a few missing sheep for a few days would be the least of his worries. Having seen the amount of repair work ahead of him. There were also many trees downed: Peter would be clearing these for weeks – if not months.

While the steading stood up well to the storm, the farmhouse in its more elevated position, did not.

Having fled their normally cosy home in a rush, the harsh reality of the lifting of darkness revealed the scene of devastation. Peter stood with his arm around his sobbing wife’s shoulders in front of the remnants of their home. They could see that the collapsing of the chimney had pulled down part of the old timber structure too. One gable of the house was no longer standing. Splintered timbers and rooms exposed to the winds, their contents now strewn all over the farm.

In the murk of that early light, something approached Home Farm from the direction of the village. The shape was a lumbering mass. The sound of its footsteps dulled by the strewn leaves and small branches now covering the road.

Billy’s keen nose caught the smell of the approaching shape. To the dog, all the smells of the farm and his home had been disturbed and now confused him. This other smell caught him off guard. Senses peaked, hair rising on his spine. The need to defend his pack was his reaction. Alert his pack, alert his master.
Billy gave a sharp alarmed bark.

At the bark of his hound, Peter raised his head from nestling against his wife’s curly hair to find out why Billy had barked. Walking up the road to the farm was a dark shadow.

“Shadow?” His breath stalled in his lungs as he struggled to think why the horse was on his way here unaccompanied.

He rushed toward the horse. Then something dreadful dawned on him.

“HENRY!” Real panic and dread filled his heart, for Shadow would never be left to just wander. Henry was much too careful, almost too careful with his precious horse.

Shelly was now the one to offer comfort and have the level headed thinking. A distressed Peter to’ed and fro’d between running to the village and sorting out the wandering jet black horse. In a gentle voice, with her hand on his back, “Go to the village,” she said. “I’ll get Shadow tied up in our stable, and check him over.”

Peter stumbled forwards running for the village, his breathing short and panicked. His mind swirling so much it was dizzying.

Billy barked and chased after his master.

Spinning round Peter bellowed “No! – Stay!” The mutt promptly stopped, sensing an almost desperate fury from his beloved keeper.

“Stay Billy,” his words softened “...Stay with Shelly.” Peter turned again and ran.

“Keep a watch o’er him, Peter.” The woman’s words repeated continually in his head as he ran. Peter returned to a walking pace, being in his fifties he was unable to run full tilt for long. The words from no more than a year previous burned panic in his mind further. His last talk with a woman he’d been friends with for years, as she lay in bed dying. “Keep an eye on him for me. ‘Til he grows up more. He’s like me, he’ll think he can do it all on his own. Give him space, but look out for him?”

He’d held her hand in his, “Aye Maggie. Aye I will...”

Peter emerged from Croft Woods. A strip of woodland at the southern edge of Home Farm, which now had many trees downed and undergrowth flattened. A breathless Peter was thankful that no trees blocked the road so he could continue without impediment, but his thanks were short lived.

The scene before him was apocalyptic to this small rural community.

Nothing was standing, nothing of any height. The windmill no longer broke the skyline. The spire of St Martins Church was missing. The manor house that looked down over the village, was partially collapsed, not unlike the scene at Home Farm.

Peter’s breath returned to him, as his disbelieving eyes began to process the scene. The windmill had fully collapsed. All that remained was a pile of stone rubble where the blacksmith once stood. The fallen windmill had flattened it. A faint smoke rose from the stones where it once stood.

Many houses had collapsed, roofs and walls reduced to rubble. Those that still stood had gaps in tiled roofs and detritus piled up against them. Natural material such as branches and leaves, but also man made things. Clothes, bedsheets, rugs, and many small household items, picked up on the wind and dumped unceremoniously.

Villagers were also strewn here and there. Not laid out, but out of place. Men, women and children wandering dazed, confused and demoralised. Some bloody and broken. Grief hung in the air. Grief, that some were now homeless. Grief, that some were mourning immeasurable losses.

“Peter!” The call of his name brought him back from the shock of contemplating the scene in front of him.

“Peter!” It came from down Stable Row.

Old Jim Greenleaf bustled toward the dumbfounded shepherd. His legs bowed and shoulders rocking from side to side as he approached in a hunched waddle.

“You’d better come here lad...” The raspy voiced old fella said.

The first house on Stable Row was just a pile of rubble topped by a collapsed tile roof. A dirty white sheet hung from a nail hammered into the door frame where the door once was. This white sheet marked something, something Peter didn’t want to comprehend.

The next two houses on Stable Row stood relatively intact. Beyond the third house was Henry’s stable. Another white sheet hung from the fence catching Peter’s eye. The white was stark against the brown mud and the surrounding dark greens.

Looking at the stable, Peter’s heart fell from his chest. Shattered, he crashed to his knees. No sound came from him though he screamed loudly inside. His face contorted in searing emotional pain. Mud squeezed out of his clenched hands, as he grasped for any grounding.

Two vast pine trees lay broken across the stable, which was now no more than three feet in height. Every stone and timber that once formed the structure was spread wide across the site.

“So aye Thomas, it must’ve been a hell of a storm. Flattened Anndale. Well, it wasn’t Anndale back then. Plenty died, even the Lordy!” exclaimed the old storyteller.

Still holding a half drunk pint glass Thomas sank back into the red velvet chair and contemplated what that day must’ve been like. He looked out of the window to see a pink evening sky above the Simpson’s cottage opposite the pub.

“Where the Simpson’s live now, ‘cross the road. That’s where the old market square was. Seen an old map years back. Was interesting for sure.” Looking up at the dark stained timbers keeping the ceilings of the Fox and Feathers in place, Old Tom said, “Even this place wasn’t untouched. Used to be called the Black Fox you know?!”

“I’d heard that, yes Tom ...so much change though.” Young Thomas’ mind was exploring the past, imagining the layout of not only the Black Fox but also the placing of the houses and buildings of Anndale before the storm.

Old Tom then told how Lord Alexander, died in the manor when part of it had crashed down around him during the storm. His sister, Lady Anne Dryhton inherited the village and surrounding lands from him. She’d instructed work to rebuild the village, repair what could be repaired and lay the foundations for the village to grow. The Church was repaired and enlarged, the Manor was rebuilt and eventually, Lady Anne resided there. A mill race was dug and a water mill built, replacing the old windmill. Many of the workmen brought in to rebuild, eventually, brought their families and stayed in this idyllic place. A place so peaceful, a place so perfect. A place that felt like home.

Old Tom summed it up as, “There was a Dryhton whose name was Anne, she got everything rebuilt and, from what the old guys said back when I was a young’un, that was why the village is called Anndale!”

Behind the bar, George, dried the inside of a pint glass having been listening in for the last half hour to Tom’s tale. He rolled his eyes and gave a brief chuckle as he assumed this tale to be too outlandish to be true, as many of Tom’s were.

“Head up to Dryhton Hall, ask to see their records, you’ll see it’s right!” Old Tom said to the disbelieving landlord across the bar.

A grimy Ben Woodley entered the lounge of the Fox and Feathers having finished burning up the bramble vines. He gave his friend Thomas, seated by the fire, a nod as he approached the bar.

“What’ll it be, young Woodley?” George asked.

“I should have one in the pump George...” Ben looked quizzically toward the younger Thomas, wondering if he’d forgotten to pay for his drink.

“You should?” The old landlord looked at him puzzled.

Mary appeared through the kitchen door behind the bar, “I told you you’d forget!” Whipping him playfully with a tea towel.

Epilogue

Autumn.

With a canvas bag slung over a shoulder, an elderly man hobbles down main street using a crook for balance and aid.

He glances along what was once Stable Row. It was now a narrow lane between two quaint cottages, with gardens bustling with flowers. Onwards, turning left by the Fox and Feathers, he walks along Church Lane, the docks and mill bridge before him. With a laboured huff of breath, he turns right through the gate of St Martin’s and walks up the incline to the church.

In a far corner of the churchyard stands a memorial stone erected 30 years previously. Dew is forming on the grass of the churchyard. The grass is springy, the thatch thick and mossy, cushioning each step taken across it.

The old man slowly weaves between the headstones of friends and some family, giving each a tap as if fondly patting their shoulder. He stands before this monument. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a sapling of a tree. Muttering to himself in a weak, elderly voice, “Twenty five years I’ve been trying to grow one of these for you.” Clumps of soil fall from the roots of the plant as he pulls it from a clay pot, “Just in time too I’d say, not many growing seasons left for me,” he was speaking to nobody, and yet to someone in particular.

Out of a coat pocket appears a well used trowel. Worn thin from years of use, its wooden handle with chunks lost from it.

Slowly lowering himself with the aid of the crook, the man starts digging near the base of the memorial. Just enough to set the saplings’ roots in the soil. After tamping down the disturbed earth, the man rises with the aid of his stick and gathers his laboured breath.

Gazing at the memorial stone for maybe the final time as he draws short breaths, he reads.

In Memoriam

Those that perished in the great storm

September 3rd, 1703

Lost that day

Lord Alexander Dryhton, aged 33 years...

Another 27 names and ages ranging from 3 months to 72 years followed in two columns side by side. Below the names is a further inscription.

We residents, honour Lady Anne Dryhton

Whom from the ruins of Hereldene, Anndale was born in her image

Reading each name, he remembers each and every one of them. One in particular causes a single tear to run down the cheek of the old man, he wipes it away.

“Beech, you always said how much you loved their colour in autumn down in the woods by Fisher Lane. Hope you like it, and I hope this one grows strong and tall, somewhere for your birds to nest maybe?” the old man pauses. He didn’t want to say it.

“Sadly, I’ll not be here to see it...” His words tail off.

He nods to the stone and turns.

The golden leaves of autumn blow gently through the churchyard as he walks back to the gate. Yellow, orange, some red, and some brown leaves carpet his path, they soften his steps on the gravel.

The wooden churchyard gate sits a-jar. Perched on it, greeting him, is an eager little blackbird chirping excitedly as the autumnal sun lowers in the sky.

Peter smiles and nods in acknowledgement, as if meeting an old friend.

The End

© Andy Gray 2026. Available in downloadable formats and audio narration at patreon.com/anndalehaven