And Why I Set a Mystery in a Gothic Mansion
There’s something about an old house that gets under your skin. A darkened doorway, a tower silhouetted against the sky, a window that seems to watch you as you pass. If you’ve ever felt a shiver of unease — or a strange pull of recognition — standing before a grand old Gothic pile, you’re not imagining things. Old houses speak to something deep inside us. And for a mystery writer, they are absolutely irresistible.
Devon’s Gothic Gems
To understand why I set The Mystery of Mossington Manor in Devon, you need to know a little about what this extraordinary county has to offer.
Take Knightshayes Court, considered one of the finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the whole of Devon. Its architect, William Burges, was famously sacked before he could finish it, but not before filling every corner with gargoyles and grotesques. (There’s a difference, by the way: gargoyles serve a practical purpose as water drains, while grotesques are purely decorative — just gloriously ugly stone figures staring down at you.)
The result is a house that feels permanently unfinished, permanently tense.
For a mystery writer 6hw6 kind of atmosphere is pure gold.
Then there’s Powderham Castle, home of the Earl of Devon. Originally a 14th-century fortress, it was dramatically remodelled in full Gothic splendour during the Victorian era. It witnessed the Wars of the Roses. It was besieged during the English Civil War. Centuries of conflict and tension are literally embedded in its stones.
And not far from Dartmoor, Canonteign Manor dates back to the Domesday era, passed through Norman lords, Tudor nobility, and saw Civil War occupation. Medieval, Tudor, Stuart, Victorian — all layered on top of each other, like the pages of a very long, very complicated story.
Which is, of course, exactly what a mystery is.
Why Layers Matter in a Mystery
A mystery is built from layers. There are suspects, there are clues, there’s the real killer quietly going about their business. There’s the chaos that follows a crime, and then the slow, satisfying restoration of order as the sleuth — and the reader — piece things together. That’s not just entertainment. Psychologically, it’s genuinely soothing. We’re restoring balance to a world that has been tipped sideways. Even in a light, cozy mystery, that matters.
Gothic architecture works the same way. Victorian Gothic Revival wasn’t just about aesthetics — it was a statement. Families wanted their homes to look ancient, to project permanence and deep roots, even when the building was relatively new. There’s something faintly dishonest about that, isn’t there? “Oh, this is my ancestral home” — built twenty years ago. And that tension between the appearance of history and the reality beneath it is, for a mystery writer, absolutely perfect territory.
Mossington Manor is a little like that too. It sits on centuries of secrets. But you’ll have to read the book to find out exactly what.
What Makes a House Gothic?
When I started researching Gothic architecture properly, I found it endlessly fascinating. Here are the key elements:
- Pointed arches — borrowed from medieval cathedrals, they carry a sense of spiritual upward movement, of the soul striving towards something higher. They also provide genuine structural stability, which feels like a nice metaphor: even in chaos, we’re always seeking balance.
- Turrets and towers — there’s a reason fairy tales put the princess in the tower. They create a sense of being watched, of surveillance from above. Rather like a very observant amateur sleuth surveying everything around her.
- Gargoyles and grotesques — guardians, in a sense. Originally thought to ward off evil spirits by looking sufficiently terrifying themselves. (There’s a wonderful old French folk story about a water dragon — the origin of the word “gargoyle” — but that’s a whole other podcast.)
- Asymmetry and atmosphere — Gothic buildings never quite behave themselves. They’re not symmetrical, not tidy, not predictable. Sound familiar? That’s the mystery novel in architectural form.
Houses as Mirrors of the Self
Here’s where it gets really interesting. I have a background in psychology, and I’ve always been drawn to the work of Carl Jung — particularly his ideas about dreams. Jung believed that one of the most powerful symbols in human dreaming is the house. Not just as a building, but as a representation of the self.
In Jungian terms, the attic holds your memories and thoughts. The basement houses repressed emotions and instincts. The rooms you haven’t yet entered? Those are the parts of yourself you haven’t yet explored. If you’ve ever dreamed of finding an unknown room in a house — and I certainly have — Jung might say your unconscious is trying to show you some unrealised potential, some part of yourself waiting to be seen.
And there’s something else. Research has shown that being in a historic space genuinely calms the nervous system. Historic England has found that people form powerful attachments to old places because they meet a deep need for stability and connection across time. When you stand in a building that has endured for centuries, it signals — on some primitive level — that things go on. Life continues. Everything is going to be okay.
Harmony Stone and Mossington Manor
My amateur sleuth, Harmony Stone, is 53, recently divorced, and house-sitting in Devon while she rebuilds her life. The Gothic manor across the valley, mid-restoration and riddled with secrets, is the very embodiment of her inner landscape. Neither the house nor Harmony is quite finished, or quite settled. Both are in the process of revealing themselves, layer by layer.
That state of being in between — neither ruined nor restored, neither past nor present, is what makes Mossington Manor the perfect setting for a mystery.
Every wall is a palimpsest, a surface written over and over across the centuries. Every locked room hides a secret someone chose to keep. And buried beneath 500 years of history is a very modern murder that Harmony Stone is going to unravel, one layer at a time.
Haven’t we all, at some point, looked at a beautiful old house and felt something like recognition? Maybe that’s exactly what’s going on.