charles barrow's writing

I'm reading a science fiction thriller at the moment. The Stone Man by Luke Smitherd. It's an ebook, self published I'd guess. It's gripping stuff, I'm enjoying it so far. Someone should make it into a movie. Reading the book I was reminded of this photo of a stone man I took a while ago in the grounds of an Abbey. It's not anything like the stone man described in Smitherd's story, his is featureless. I remembered this one looking as though he was in pain or torment, perhaps frozen in time as Medusa turned him to stone. Now I see the photo again I'm thinking he looks more rapturous, with his face turned to heaven. Photos are the author's own.

This is a Victorian ice house. A curious brick structure built into a bank of earth in the woods. The doorway leads into a short tunnel. Beyond that grille is a circular brick chamber descending, perhaps, fifteen feet into the ground, this is where the compacted ice would have been stored, covered in layers of straw. It's light but damp and cold in there which is the point I suppose. It would make a great prison cell, or place to hide a dead body. The photos are the author's own.