Blackbird Hall is the location that Gemma finds work at after learning that Claypoole will be closing permanently. Blackbird Hall belongs to Mr. Sinclair, who is introduced as a London businessman, although Vicky Sinclair is who Gemma speaks to on the phone: "Mr. Sinclair is the owner of Blackbird Hall. Nowadays he mostly lives in London, making money hand over fist. Vicky is his housekeeper. They're distant cousins" (Livesey 151). Blackbird Hall serves as a parallel to Thornfield hall in Jane Eyre. As in the original, Gemma will be looking after a small girl, who in this novel is named Nell (versus Adèle in Jane Eyre). Similar to Jane Eyre, the hall is the place she meets her love interest. Blackbird Hall is located in the Orkneys, and Gemma must take a ferry to get to the hall.
As for the naming of the hall, the choice of “blackbird” conjures up various interpretations. According to the OED, the blackbird is “a common Eurasian thrush, Turdus merula, of which the male has black plumage and a yellow bill and is noted for its melodious song, and the female is dark brown” (blackbird, n.1). Although this is the most common definition, which actually concerns the type of bird, there is also a historical interpretation of the word blackbird that was often used as slang for “a black person who has been taken captive as a slave” or “an indentured labourer recruited in the south Pacific to work on a sugar plantation” (blackbird, n.3). Although race is not explicitly addressed in this hypertext of Jane Eyre, it is addressed in Jane Eyre, and explored in Wide Sargasso Sea. Changing “Thornfield Hall” to “Blackbird Hall” implicates a parallel between the racial tensions present in the original novel and prequel without having to reuse the original storyline verbatim.
Bibliography: "blackbird, n.1." OED Online, Oxford University Press, Sept. 2019, https://www-oed-com.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/view/Entry/19688?rsk…. 13 Sept. 2019.
"blackbird, n.3." OED Online, Oxford University Press, Sept. 2019, https://www-oed-com.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/view/Entry/19688?rsk…. 13 Sept. 2019.
Livesey, Margot. The Flight of Gemma Hardy. HarperCollins, 2012.