Through this unique residency, poems were placed within the house, together with an activity sheet for families, schools and writers. These resources offer fresh impetus to the realisation that the study of workhouses through literature, as well as via history, is invaluable in understanding how we treat our poor.

The Fearnought Project was hosted by the National Trust and supported by Nottinghamshire County Council. The poetry collection (available below) also incorporates a series of haunting and inventive photographs, capturing through visual as well as poetic imagery this demonstrably historic space.

"These poems are powerful, deep and - surprisingly perhaps - musical."  Julian May, BBC Radio 4.

 
Mornings
when I pull on this
jacket

I feel
through scuppered heels
each flagstone

melt. Melt
and rock to the greys
of sea. See how

they clad
me as they do the rest -
as they would

a winter vessel -
in wool wove stiff as
sheet metal against

cold so
fierce as to make flesh
turn against itself.

Yet even
the Queen's ship must
wait its tide

and I
await mine. With their
jacket I berth my

self against labour -
in this fleet ebb of life
resist each

rough swell.

 
Split this house as
if a stone - strike it

with attention's edge
so where it cleaves (a-

long this slab / be-
hind that wall) is all

you get of creatured
bodies soft as yours

but caught between
twin rocks in times

more hard - whose
dreams were claws

of hammer-chisel
moving slow with

muddied light and
trailing grooves that

even scabs of time
can't heal. We at

least may choose: to
step right over or else

to use our hands these
vital hands as trowels

and every eye a living
pick uncovering how

each blow of work has
left its arc. Stoop low

enough. Here. And you
may see (who knows)

how life went cold.

 
We're men half-
baked - swinging
lead-heavy sledges

over our heads
on elbowy sticks
of bread. Hour

by hour: men
of flour. Saved by
a pinch of salt.

Here because
we ought to use
our loaf. Because

men of fire eat
iron. Rust. Entire
nations. But we

float through days
on crusts. Dawn
to dusk each raft

the same. Like
us. Each slice we
are - adrift on

a basin of gruel.
Breakfast. Dinner.
Supper. One fuel.

And when at last
we rise to heaven
then I suppose

we'll be made
to mow His fields
divine with wheat -

move mountains
of holy yeast - and
reach back down

to knead (one
by one) each grey
cloud of dough.

 
The staple of the workhouse diet was bread.
‘Sledge' = sledgehammer.

 
Make me a mast
from a long man's bones

Make me a deck
from weeks of work

Make me a helm
from the rubbed-off

skins of oakum
Carve me a rudder

from doors that sever
sister from brother

Make me an anchor

Stitch me a sail
from peelings of spud

shaved so thin
they show the light -

a sail that light it
billows on a sneeze

But don't do
these - just break

that window
Give me

a breeze

 
Here
we are the law.
Not just of where

to walk
but how to
look. So stare at

us well
because we lack
soft landings. Keep

eyes to
the floor or we'll
trip you back down -

plus a
bloody nose.
Let the earliest riser

among you
sneak up on us.
You'll find us always

on guard.
We will never
budge. Every step

you take
will make you
toe our same old line.

Each little
flight you fancy
returns you a grudge.