Ravenscar

Went over to Ravenscar today. It’s a weird, slightly magical place; laid out in the Nineteenth Century for a holiday resort that never happened but with a layered history that includes an alum mine, a brickworks and a Roman fortification. The slightly faded Raven Hall Hotel is the site both of a real-life Eighteenth Century sanatorium where the Mad King George stayed and a fictional Mental Asylum in which DC Comics’ John Constantine spent some troubled times. We had a rather nice cream tea there…