6: The Presence Chamber – Thin Places in Hard Concrete, story by story

The sixth story in my new collection, Thin Places in Hard Concrete, was inspired by reading about Henry VIII’s colossal Nonsuch Palace. I first learned about Nonsuch from the 1945 book British Architects and Craftsmen by Sacheverell Sitwell, which I read in a yellowing Pan paperback edition from 1960. A chapter about Tudor architecture includes a murky line illustration of Nonsuch (or Nonesuch) along with this attention-grabbing line: Unfortunately the most conspicuous building of the age has been destroyed. This was the palace of Nonesuch in Surrey. “Nonesuch Palace: a reconstruction by the late H.W. Brewer”. I was astonished to discover that a palace bigger and more gorgeous than Hampton Court had once existed but was allowed to be demolished, with its constituent parts sold off as building materials to pay the gambling debts of Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine, in the 17th century. And, yes, I knew about the XTC album Nonsuch but, honestly, I just thought it was a fairy tale, or…