| Title | The Winchester Tales |
| Author | Chris Heal |
| Paperback | 234 x 155 mm, RRP £16.99 |
| Content | Historical novel • 198 pages • 16 B&W illustrations • 4 maps • people index |
| ISBN | 978-1-9161944-4-1 |
| Printer | IngramSpark |
| Publisher | Chattaway & Spottiswood, Hampshire |
The Winchester Tales
The Winchester Tales is now available for purchase from your choice of selected local stores, major bookshops and from internet retailers at a recommended retail price of £16.99. The book is the last of the independent stories which make up the Ridge Trilogy (The Four Marks Murders and Ropley’s Legacy)
Direct sales outlets:
Alresford: Bookseller Laurence Oxley, 17 Broad Street SO24 9AW; 01962 732188
Alresford: Long Barn Garden Centre, Bishops Sutton Road SO24 9EJ; 01962 738684
Alton: Goldfinch Books, 24 High Street GU34 1BN; 0779 653 1197
Medstead: Handy Store Post Office, High St, GU34 5LW; 01420 560247
Ropley: Courtyard Village Shop & Post Office, Church St, SO24 0DS; 01962 773666
Winchester: P & G Wells, 11 College Street, Kingsgate Street, SO23 9LZ; 01962 852016
Winchester: Visitor Information Centre, Guildhall, The Broadway, SO23 9GH; 01962 840500
Winchester: Cathedral Gift Shop, Cathedral Close, SO23 9LS; 01962 857228
Winchester: Waterstones Bookshop, The Brooks, SO23 8QY; 01962 866206
Gilbert of Bayeux’s manuscript was discovered in 2021 wound in some scraps of early rent rolls in a chest in the attic of a private house in Ropley in Hampshire. The manuscript contains sixty-seven sheets of calf skin of varying sizes all but three covered in Gilbert’s meticulous handwriting. The text was written in Latin, Norman French and, towards the end, in Anglo-Saxon.
Gilbert’s story is remarkable. It begins about 1050 with his early life in Bayeux as an orphan kitchen servant of Odo, bishop of that city. Gilbert’s organisational and language skills saw him lead the distribution of the loot delivered to Normandy after the invasion of 1066. He was called to England in the next year to form part of the new Norman administration in Winchester. His first task was to speed the transfer of English land to the control of the new masters. Almost always an outsider, he nevertheless witnessed or took part in many of the great local events of the Norman era including, for instance, the making of the Bayeux Tapestry and the production of the Domesday Book. Gilbert met most of the new aristocracy as his own views were increasingly tested. During this time, he also found the great love of his life, Ailgifu, a Saxon mead seller of Medstead and a women of decidedly independent and English opinions.