The Kitchen Maid

Author/Guide: Val Wood

Why a Booktrail?

1800s: Just how much tragedy can one woman bear?

ISBN: 978-0552171533
Genre: Historical, Sagas

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What you need to know before your trail

Jenny is determined to make her own way in the world, and she secures a job as the kitchen maid in a grand house in Beverly, Yorkshire.

Gradually, she gains the attention of the young master of the house, and they fall in love. However one evening, tragedy strikes and Jenny is thrust into a world she doesn’t understand. A black cloud descends..

Cast aside by her own family, Jenny faces many difficulties until a very usual promise changes the course of her life. Jenny the kitchen maid has certainly come up in the world – although the words of a gypsy ring in her ears – that on day she will return to where she was once happy – and discover her true love . . .

Locations

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Travel Guide

This novel from Val Wood really brings the areas of Hull and Beverley to life. The conditions of those working in service, the role of women and the demands of men…

Hull

Streetlife Museum

Jenny starts life here and this museum will more than bring her story alive

Beverley

“When we arrived in Beverley, I fell silent, I was overwhelmed. I could see the big church which the carrier said was the Minster and I could hear the bells ringing, a right din they were making, and then we drive through one market place which he said was called Wednesday market and then into another, which he said was called Saturday market.

There was a great hustle and bustle there with wagons and carries and men on horseback and folks milling about on their business. It wasn’t quite square and had cobbles underfoot,and around it of buildings and shops sill with the little glass windows, which hadn’t yet been gutted and improved like there have been in Hull

There were inns and shops and a fish shambles, and a splendid monument with columns and the Beverley coat of arms above it which the carrier told me was the Market Cross and was used for Proclamations”