Dracula and Gothic Tourism

Abstract

“Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of the Exchequer,” noted Charles Dickens, referring to a common method of recording debt that had been used since the Middle Ages. Employed especially in agrarian taxation, the split tally stick had finally, in 1825, given way to modern forms of record keeping using pen, ink, and paper. By 1834, these sticks and stocks constituted a vast accumulated archive that was no longer required and had to be destroyed.

It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof.¹

The spirit of old papistical times still lingers in the nooks of those silent walls, like a bad odour in a still atmosphere.

Thomas Hardy, A Laodicean