The walk back through the village and down the footpath to the barn was blissfully free of anything strange and Lucy enjoyed the sun slipping through the branches overhead, the constantly moving shadows on the path, the birdsong and ripple of the stream, and the scents of rose and honeysuckle. They had reached that time in high summer when nature ran rampant.

She met Johnny as she walked down the footpath to the barn. He was rolling up a long tape measure whilst away in Clarabelle’s field, two people could be seen walking up and down with what looked like complicated pieces of machinery.

“The geophysics team is here today,” Johnny said. “Finn’s called in some extra help so we can put the history of the whole site together a bit faster. Now we know we’re dealing with something so potentially exciting, he’s keen to get more people involved and some more funding so that Verity isn’t bearing all the cost.” His face was alight with pleasure. “This could be really something, you know, Lucy—something nationally important.”

“Wow,” Lucy said. “It seems impossible, doesn’t it, when you look at Clarabelle’s paddock and the valley... How can something so amazing be hidden under here?”

“It’s great, isn’t it!” Johnny was buzzing. “The more we discover the stranger it becomes.” He put the tape measure away in the tool box. “Did Finn tell you?” he asked. “It turns out that it wasn’t only the summerhouse pavilion that was burned down back in Tudor times. A mate of his took some earth drilling samples in the woods and found a layer of fire damage in the soil. Dates suggest it all happened at the same time, in around 1600 give or take a few years.”

“So the woods caught fire and burned down the whole garden,” Lucy said. “What a dreadful thing to happen so soon after it had been planted. I wonder if it was a lightning strike? You could imagine that happening last night.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “It’s a strong possibility. Or it could have been the other way around—someone set fire to something—the pavilion, for example, and then the whole wood caught alight. Though I can’t imagine why anyone would do that. Whatever happened, it was devastating.”

“I had a look at the Lyveden New Bield book yesterday,” Lucy said. “If this garden was the prototype for the one there, we can probably redesign it based on the plan of Lyveden plus the results from your excavations. Verity will be so excited. I wondered...” She hesitated but Johnny looked so interested she pushed on: “There’s a lot of religious imagery in the house and gardens at Lyveden apparently. I wondered whether it might be the same here as the Catesbys were also a Catholic family. Though I’m not sure there would be any traces of it left now.”

“It’s a fascinating thought,” Johnny said. “I think the summerhouse pavilion was an octagon,” he added, “and there are eight different paths in the knot garden so perhaps the imagery here is around the number eight.”