Severn Valley (Cthulhu Mythos)
Encyclopedia
The Severn Valley is the setting of several fictional towns and other locations created by horror
writer Ramsey Campbell
. Part of the Cthulhu Mythos
started by H. P. Lovecraft
, the fictional milieu is arguably the most detailed mythos setting outside of Lovecraft Country
itself.
is an actual river in Wales and western England
. Campbell's stories mention various real-world locales, including the Cotswold Hills
, Berkeley
, and the A38 road
. These references place "Campbell Country" in the southern part of Gloucestershire
, roughly between the cities of Gloucester
and Bristol
. This area is more correctly referred to as the Vale of Berkeley or the Severn Estuary
; the real-world Severn Valley
refers to an area around fifty miles (80 km) further north.
, to Arkham House
's August Derleth
. "Derleth told me to abandon my attempts to set my work in Massachusetts
," Campbell wrote in the introduction to his collection Cold Print, and he accordingly rewrote his stories with an English setting. His short story "The Tomb-Herd", for example, was originally set in Lovecraft's Kingsport, Massachusetts
. It was transposed to the Cotswold town of Temphill when it appeared as "The Church in High Street", Campbell's first published story, in the 1962 Arkham House anthology Dark Mind, Dark Heart.
In that story, Campbell refers to hints "of actual worship of trans-spatial beings still practiced in such towns as Camside, Brichester, Severnford, Goatswood and Temphill," indicating that he had already conceived of most of the principal locations of his Severn Valley setting. At the time, the teenaged Campbell had never been to the actual Severn Valley; the imaginary landscapes he described may relate more to the post-World War II
Merseyside
scenes he was familiar with. He recalled in an interview:
Campbell's first collection of short stories, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants (1964), was filled with stories that take place in the Severn Valley setting, including "The Room in the Castle", "The Horror From the Bridge", "The Insects From Shaggai", "The Render of the Veils", "The Inhabitant of the Lake", "The Moon-Lens", "The Mine on Yuggoth", "The Plain of Sound", and "The Stone on the Island". His next collection, Demons by Daylight (1973), though described by Campbell as a conscious effort to throw off Lovecraft's influence, again used this Cthulhu Mythos-linked setting for several tales: "Potential", "The Sentinels", "The Interloper", "The Enchanted Fruit", "Made in Goatswood" and a metafiction
al examination of Campbell's own Lovecraftian beginnings called "The Franklyn Paragraphs".
After Demons by Daylight, Campbell returned to the Severn Valley sporadically, in such works as "Dolls" (in 1986's Scared Stiff), "The Tugging" (The Disciples of Cthulhu, 1996) and the 2003 novel The Darkest Part of the Woods. In 1995 he contributed a rather tongue-in-cheek story set in the Severn Valley, "The Horror Under Warrendown", to an anthology of horror fiction called Made in Goatswood.
, is a collection of stories by various writers set in Campbell's fictionalized Gloucestershire. Contributors to the anthology include A. A. Attanasio
, Richard A. Lupoff
and Robert M. Price
.
does in Lovecraft's.) "These days Brichester has an impressively mundane surface," Campbell writes in "The Franklyn Paragraphs", "but I still sense that it may crack."
"The Enchanted Fruit" portrays "the daily press of Brichester, the false harsh rainbow of packed cars", and "churches robbed of dignity by plummeting iron balls" (though the protagonist recalls "streets where some lone house had struck him speechless with its silent pride, the noble bearing of its age and history").
Brichester has a wide variety of media outlets. "The Moon Lens" refers to the Brichester Weekly News. "The Tugging" establishes that the town also has a daily—The Brichester Herald, advertised as "Brichester's Evening Voice"—as well as a radio station, Radio Brichester. A reporter for the Herald, Ingels, is that story's main character; he complains at one point that the town lacks a TV studio. "The Franklyn Paragraphs" gives Brichester a horror fanzine, Spirited, while "Potential" describes an underground paper, the International Times.
"Cold Print" refers to Brichester's Ultimate Press, who are described as publishing the medieval heretic Johannes Henricus Pott, a new 12th volume of the Revelations of Glaaki, and a line of bondage-related pornography. Brichester also has the True Light Press, mentioned in "The Franklyn Paragraphs", which turns out to be Roland Franklyn's self-publishing operation.
Brichester Central Library appears in "The Franklyn Paragraphs", where Errol Undercliffe notes of it, "You couldn't get farther from a Lovecraft setting." It does, however, carry a copy of Roland Franklyn's We Pass From View--as well as Ramsey Campbell's The Inhabitant of the Lake.
"Potential" opens at the town's Cooperative Hall, site of "Brichester's First Be-In—Free Flowers and Bells!" (The name of one of the bands that plays the be-in, the Faveolate Collosi, alludes to Campbell's story "The Mine on Yuggoth".) The Co-operative Social Club is also referred to in "The Interloper".
One of the first mentions of Brichester University is in "The Horror From the Bridge", where it is said "they were familiar with things whose existence is not recognized by science." In that story, Philip Chesterton, formerly a librarian at the British Museum
, takes a job in the university's library in 1901 in order to keep an eye on strange goings on in Clotton. The library once kept copies, in a locked case, of "the Necronomicon
, the Revelations of Glaaki, De Vermis Mysteriis
, and other titles as ominous", but in the 1960s "a Muslim student...spray(ed) them with lighter fluid and set fire to them," destroying them completely.
In "The Mine on Yuggoth", Brichester native Edward Taylor enrolled in the university in 1918, where he "led a witch cult, centering round a stone slab in the woods off the Severnford road." Taylor, along with other participants including "the artist Nevil Craughan and the occultist Henry Fisher", were subsequently expelled.
There is a science-fiction shop, Worlds Unlimited, near the University campus "in the dilapidated Victorian streets that had become the student quarter". In the same neighborhood is the Scholar's Rest: "Beneath a jauntily sagging slate roof the squat sandstone building faced the university campus.... Each window of the pub held a swelling like a great blind eye.... (T)he dim low-timbered interior was lined with old books." The pub's strongest ale is called Witch's Brew. Another near-campus dining option is Peace & Beans, a vegetarian restaurant with "rough wooden tables" and a clientele of "students and a few health-conscious oldsters".
In the same story, however, at the "bottom of Mercy Hill" is Dee Terrace, the address of the house of Roland Franklyn, which is described as "look(ing) like Satan
was in residence":
n extra room had been added on the left, and its windows had been blocked out with newer brick; all the curtains, except those of one ground-floor window draped in green, were black. The house looked deserted, the more so for its garden, which could not have been tended for years; grass and weeds grew knee-high.
Mercy Hill is mentioned in "The Horror From the Bridge" as the site of a 19th century prison; in "The Moon Lens", Mercy Hill Hospital is the name of the institution where, in 1961, Roy Leakey seeks mercy killing from Dr. James Linwood, an advocate of euthanasia
. The story "The Mine on Yuggoth" records that Edward Taylor was taken to Mercy Hill Hospital after his 1924 ascent of Devil's Steps, and that ever since his X-rays have been kept in a restricted file.
Franklyn is buried in the graveyard next to Mercy Hill Hospital, where
illows, their branches glowing stippled curves, were spaced carefully toward the Hill out of which the cemetery was carved; in the hill itself were catacombs, black behind ivy or railings, and above stood the hospital, a grey reminder of hope or despair.... The avenues were guarded by broken-nosed angels yearning heavenward; one showed a leprous patch where her left eye and cheek had sloughed away. Urns stood here and there like empty glasses at a sick bed.
In The Darkest Part of the Woods, its said that
The observer finds himself sympathizing with the district's "abandonment, and indifference to time".
In "The Franklyn Paragraphs", Lower Brichester's Pitt Street is the address of Errol Undercliffe (1937–1967), a writer who specializes in "contemporary treatments of traditional macabre themes". In "The Tugging", it's the location of the Brichester Arts Lab, a program run by Annabel Pringle that practices "associational painting"—a technique that uses free association
to discover images, starting with suggestions from the I Ching
.
"Cold Print" takes place in Lower Brichester at a bookshop known only in the story as American Books Bought and Sold. This store was the site of a manifestation of the entity Y'golonac
.
. Led by one Thomas Lee and remaining at the lake from 1790 until shortly after 1865, the cult received the Revelations of Glaaki as dream-sendings, and published an expurgated nine-volume set from an original 11-volume manuscript. Long after the cult's disappearance, painter Thomas Cartwright took up residence at Lakeview Terrace, where he worked on the painting The Thing in the Lake before his mysterious demise.
As described in "The Mine on Yuggoth", the Devil's Steps are a "rock formation beyond Brichester" that
At the top of the tower is a dimensional gate to the planet Yuggoth
. The towers are surrounded by an "alien species" of fungus, with "a grey stem covered with twining leaves" that uncurl toward approaching visitors.
, the residents of Goatswood have a distinctive, offputting appearance; a typical resident is described as "revoltingly goatlike", resembling "a medieval woodcut of a satyr
", and clad in "grotesquely voluminous" garments.
The most prominent feature of Goatswood is the titular Moon-Lens: A "metal pylon, 50 feet high, rose from the center of the square. At the top (is)...a large convex lens surrounded by an arrangement of mirrors, and all hinged on a pivot attached to the ground by taut ropes." It is said by a perhaps unreliable character to have been built by the Romans
.
Goatswood is sometimes an unavoidable connection on the train route from Exham to Brichester. The infrequent visitors to Goatswood, "The Moon Lens" reveals, eat at the Station Cafe and stay at the Central Hotel.
In a later story, "Made in Goatswood", the village has more to offer to outsiders: a curiosity shop with a toad-like proprietor whose "hands were brown and crinkled as the paper in which he wrapped the parcels", selling disturbing lawn ornaments; a fruit stand in a "canvas stall like a shrine" where fruit resembling peaches are offered by a girl whose "eyelids lowered wickedly". There's even a red light district, Fitzroy Street, on the edge of town:
efore the woods closed in, a last street of dingy houses lay exhausted between gardens high with grass, uneven with rocks, and on the corner a newspaper-shop, its cramped windows full of yellow cards; baked mud preserved the tracks of cars.
"The Franklyn Paragraphs" mentions a number of places visited by "the circle of young men" around occultist Roland Franklyn—Goatswood among them.
In the "woods toward toward Goatswood" is a clearing, according to "The Insects of Shaggai", where a "meteorite" fell in the 17th century; a coven that subsequently worshipped there was executed by real-life witchfinder Matthew Hopkins
. In the clearing may be found a mysterious gray cone, home to the titular creatures; the story "The Moon Lens" alludes to this artifact.
These woods also feature in "The Enchanted Fruit", whose protagonist at first finds them enticing—"Each corridor of trees seemed made to be explored, each green shadow promised mystery"—and later forbidding: "A screen of leaves seemed secretive; parted, it revealed only vistas of dim branches." In the forest, he finds a tree whose "rich trunk, dark yet warm, stood alone on a mound of autumn built high from the edge of the glade"; he eats the fruit of this tree, "large as apples, soft and shaped as peaches", to his immediate delight and later regret.
The church of the title is set on a hill near the center of town, around which the town was built. It is said to exist "conterminously" with a temple of Yog-Sothoth
. It is described:
Those who penetrate the catacombs beneath the church—reached via a trap door under the first set of pews—find themselves unaccountably unable to leave the town, as if the streets were turning back on themselves.
In "The Church on High Street", Temphill is home to John Clothier, "a man possessed of an extraordinary amount of ancient knowledge", and to Albert Young, a young man working on a "book on witchcraft and witchcraft lore". In the subsequent story "The Horror From the Bridge", Temphill is where James Phipps acquires "extremely rare chemicals", as well as his mysterious wife.
"The Franklyn Paragraphs" lists Temphill as one of the places that "the circle of young men" around Roland Franklyn visit. Franklyn's widow, complaining about the horrors he had put her through, says, "He took me down to Temphill and made me watch those things dancing on the graves."
The forced is a reference to the fact there is only one bus daily from Severnford to Brichester, which leaves in the morning; if visitors miss it, walking may be the only alternative. It is a full morning's walk away, and the route is not well-marked. (The motor route between Brichester and Severnford passes by "(h)ills...like sleeping collosi".)
One attraction is the Inn at Severnford, a facility in central Severnford which is said to be "one of the oldest (inns) in England". However, in 1958 it was found to be "temporarily" closed to the public, reportedly because of repeated vandalism
.
Severnford and its outskirts are the main setting of Campbell's "The Room in the Castle", in which the Anglican church in Severnford is noted for having "a stone carving depicting an angel holding a large star-shaped object
in front of a cowering toad-like object."
The castle of the title is a ruined mansion on the outskirts of town, past Cotton Row: "It was set on the crest of the hill, three walls still standing, though the roof had long ago collapsed. A lone tower stood like a charred finger against the pale sky." It was once the home of Sir Gilbert Morley, described as an "18th-century warlock" who imprisoned the Great Old One Byatis
in the castle's basement.
Campbell returned to Severnford in the story "Potential", a setting in which "(t)he streets were lit by gaslamps, reflected flickering in windows set in dark moist stone." The climactic scene of that story is set in a disused Severnford pub called The Riverside, used as a sort of clubhouse by cultists who listen to Penderecki
and read Roland Franklyn and Ultimate Press pornography. There is a suggestion that the Severnford authorities are complicit in the cult's activities: "Oh, the police know about this," one cult member says. "They're used to it by now, they don't interfere."
About two-and-a-half miles (by foot) out of Severnford, after passing a "thickly overgrown forest, where (one) would certainly have become further lost," and crossing "montonous fields (without) seeing a building or another human being," one comes to "an area of grassy hillocks", followed by a region of "miniature valleys". It is in one of these that the title phenomenon of "The Plain of Sound" was encountered, next to a house once inhabited by former Brichester University professor Arnold Hird. The peculiar auditory phenomenon can become a gate to the Gulf of S'glhuo.
In the story "The Faces at Pine Dunes", Severnford is named by the fictional book Witchcraft in England as one of several centers of witchcraft activity—apparently the only place in the Severn Valley so listed.
In the 19th century the island became associated with a series of shocking mutilations. Victims, only some of whom survive the ordeal, began with witchcult follower Joseph Norton in 1803, followed by Severnford clergyman Nevill Rayner in 1826, an unnamed prostitute in 1866 who was taken to Brichester Central Hospital, the folk customs
investigator of 1870 Alan Thorpe, a Brichester University student in 1930, and Mercy Hill paranormal
researcher Dr. Stanley Nash and his son Michael (the latest victim) in 1962.
"The island beyond Severnford" is visited by Franklyn's circle in "The Franklyn Paragraphs". The island is reachable via "a small hut" "on the edge of the docks" that advertises, "Hire a boat and see the Severn at its best!"
" pastiche, "The Horror From the Bridge", is a small town set where the river Ton flows into the Severn. Only a "few leaning red-brick houses...remain of the uptown section of the once-prosperous town"; the rest of the town was deliberately destroyed in 1931, for reasons explained in the story. In "The Horror Under Warrendown", Clotton is mentioned as "a small settlement which appeared to be largely abandoned, its few occupied houses huddling together on each side of a river." The story notes the town's "stagnant almost reptilian smell and chilly haze."
The town's most noteworthy feature, also dating to 1931, is a "20-foot high concrete building...on the bank of the Ton", with an "eldritch sign clumsily engraved on each wall", carvings that "were blurred by moss and weather".
The town was once home to James Phipps, "a gaunt pallid-faced man with jet-black hair and long bony hands" who died in 1898, aged well over a century, and his son Lionel Phipps (1806–1931). Both were odd individuals given to "unorthodox scientific researches" and nocturnal excavation. They lived on Riverside Alley, "a little-tenanted street within sight of a bridge over the Ton".
Outside of Clotton, according to "The Horror From the Bridge", there is a "pit on a patch of waste ground on what used to be Canning Road, near the river," containing "roughly-cut steps, each carrying a carven five-pointed sign, which led down into abysmal darkness."
In "The Franklyn Paragraphs", which mentions Clotton as another place visited by the Franklyn circle, Franklyn's widow notes that "we went down the steps below Clotton."
In "The Mine on Yuggoth", Edward Taylor is committed to the Camside Home for the Mentally Disturbed in 1924, after his ascent of the Devil's Steps.
and Brichester. (Clotton, the story notes, is between Brichester and Warrendown.) The narrator describes it as
Near the edge of the village, which is only half a mile wide, there is a school, described as "one long mound fattened by a pelt of thatch and grass and moss." The school is connected to a rotting, half-ruined church that "once possessed a tower, the overgrown stones of which were scattered beyond the edge of the village." Inside the church, "the dozen or so pews on either side of the aisle, each pew broad enough to accommodate a large family, were only bloated green with moss and weeds; but the altar before them had been levered up, leaning its back against the rear wall of the church and exposing the underside of its stone." Where the altar used to be is the entrance to a system of tunnels that lead to the entity referred to in the story's title.
The air in the village is filled with a "rotten vegetable sweetness". The inhabitants, like those of Lovecraft's Innsmouth
, share a "look", but while the people of Innsmouth resemble frogs, those of Warrendown call to mind rabbits, with "plump yet flattish face(s)" that sometimes appear furry, "swollen" eyes, "bestial" teeth, and outsized ears and feet.
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
writer Ramsey Campbell
Ramsey Campbell
John Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction author.Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T...
. Part of the Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
started by H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
, the fictional milieu is arguably the most detailed mythos setting outside of Lovecraft Country
Lovecraft Country
Lovecraft Country is a term coined by Keith Herber for the New England setting, combining real and fictitious locations, used by H. P. Lovecraft in many of his weird fiction stories, and later elaborated by other writers working in the Cthulhu Mythos. The term was popularized by Chaosium, the...
itself.
Real-world location
The River SevernRiver Severn
The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...
is an actual river in Wales and western England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Campbell's stories mention various real-world locales, including the Cotswold Hills
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
, Berkeley
Berkeley, Gloucestershire
Berkeley is a town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It lies in the Vale of Berkeley between the east bank of the River Severn and the M5 motorway within the Stroud administrative district. The town is noted for Berkeley Castle where the imprisoned Edward II was murdered.- Geography...
, and the A38 road
A38 road
The A38, part of which is also known as the Devon Expressway, is a major A-class trunk road in England.The road runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. It is long, making it one of the longest A-roads in England. It was formerly known as the Leeds — Exeter Trunk Road,...
. These references place "Campbell Country" in the southern part of Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, roughly between the cities of Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
and Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
. This area is more correctly referred to as the Vale of Berkeley or the Severn Estuary
Severn Estuary
The Severn Estuary is the estuary of the River Severn, the longest river in Great Britain. Its high tidal range means it has been at the centre of discussions in the UK regarding renewable energy.-Geography:...
; the real-world Severn Valley
Severn Valley (England)
The Severn Valley is a rural area of mid-western England, through which the River Severn runs and the Severn Valley Railway steam heritage line operates, starting at its northernmost point in Bridgnorth, Shropshire and running south for 16 miles to Bewdley, Worcestershire in the Wyre...
refers to an area around fifty miles (80 km) further north.
Ramsey Campbell
Campbell invented his locales when, as a 15-year-old Lovecraft fan, he submitted Lovecraftian pastiches, set in Lovecraft's New EnglandNew England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, to Arkham House
Arkham House
Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
's August Derleth
August Derleth
August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
. "Derleth told me to abandon my attempts to set my work in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
," Campbell wrote in the introduction to his collection Cold Print, and he accordingly rewrote his stories with an English setting. His short story "The Tomb-Herd", for example, was originally set in Lovecraft's Kingsport, Massachusetts
Kingsport (Lovecraft)
Kingsport is a fictional town in the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. The town first appeared in Lovecraft's short story "The Terrible Old Man"...
. It was transposed to the Cotswold town of Temphill when it appeared as "The Church in High Street", Campbell's first published story, in the 1962 Arkham House anthology Dark Mind, Dark Heart.
In that story, Campbell refers to hints "of actual worship of trans-spatial beings still practiced in such towns as Camside, Brichester, Severnford, Goatswood and Temphill," indicating that he had already conceived of most of the principal locations of his Severn Valley setting. At the time, the teenaged Campbell had never been to the actual Severn Valley; the imaginary landscapes he described may relate more to the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Merseyside
Merseyside
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...
scenes he was familiar with. He recalled in an interview:
- There was probably a period when I was reading and trying to imitate Lovecraft, whilst equally exploring what was then a considerably ruined Merseyside landscape. Whole slews of ruined streets, which I was perfectly happy to wander through on my way to odd, out of the way cinemas. And because I saw the city all around me as this kind of gothic, almost supernatural landscape, I think a lot of that fed into my writing.
Campbell's first collection of short stories, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants (1964), was filled with stories that take place in the Severn Valley setting, including "The Room in the Castle", "The Horror From the Bridge", "The Insects From Shaggai", "The Render of the Veils", "The Inhabitant of the Lake", "The Moon-Lens", "The Mine on Yuggoth", "The Plain of Sound", and "The Stone on the Island". His next collection, Demons by Daylight (1973), though described by Campbell as a conscious effort to throw off Lovecraft's influence, again used this Cthulhu Mythos-linked setting for several tales: "Potential", "The Sentinels", "The Interloper", "The Enchanted Fruit", "Made in Goatswood" and a metafiction
Metafiction
Metafiction, also known as Romantic irony in the context of Romantic works of literature, is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion...
al examination of Campbell's own Lovecraftian beginnings called "The Franklyn Paragraphs".
After Demons by Daylight, Campbell returned to the Severn Valley sporadically, in such works as "Dolls" (in 1986's Scared Stiff), "The Tugging" (The Disciples of Cthulhu, 1996) and the 2003 novel The Darkest Part of the Woods. In 1995 he contributed a rather tongue-in-cheek story set in the Severn Valley, "The Horror Under Warrendown", to an anthology of horror fiction called Made in Goatswood.
Made in Goatswood
Made in Goatswood, edited by Scott David Aniolowski and published by ChaosiumChaosium
Chaosium is one of the longer lived publishers of role-playing games still in existence. Founded by Greg Stafford, its first game was actually a wargame, White Bear and Red Moon, which later mutated into Dragon Pass and its sequel, Nomad Gods...
, is a collection of stories by various writers set in Campbell's fictionalized Gloucestershire. Contributors to the anthology include A. A. Attanasio
A. A. Attanasio
Alfred Angelo Attanasio, born on September 20, 1951 in Newark, New Jersey, is an author of fantasy and science fiction. His science-fiction novel Radix was nominated for the 1981 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was followed by three other novels, the four books, together, comprising the critically...
, Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
and Robert M. Price
Robert M. Price
Robert McNair Price is an American theologian and writer. He teaches philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and the author of a number of books on theology and the historicity of Jesus, including...
.
Locations
Some of the major sites of Campbell's Severn Valley include Brichester, Goatswood, Temphill, Severnford, Clotton and Camside.Brichester
Brichester is the main town of Campbell's Severn Valley, the setting of several tales and often a background element of stories that take place elsewhere. (It plays the same role in Campbell's stories that ArkhamArkham
Arkham is a fictional city in Massachusetts, part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft and is featured in many of his stories, as well as those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers....
does in Lovecraft's.) "These days Brichester has an impressively mundane surface," Campbell writes in "The Franklyn Paragraphs", "but I still sense that it may crack."
"The Enchanted Fruit" portrays "the daily press of Brichester, the false harsh rainbow of packed cars", and "churches robbed of dignity by plummeting iron balls" (though the protagonist recalls "streets where some lone house had struck him speechless with its silent pride, the noble bearing of its age and history").
Brichester has a wide variety of media outlets. "The Moon Lens" refers to the Brichester Weekly News. "The Tugging" establishes that the town also has a daily—The Brichester Herald, advertised as "Brichester's Evening Voice"—as well as a radio station, Radio Brichester. A reporter for the Herald, Ingels, is that story's main character; he complains at one point that the town lacks a TV studio. "The Franklyn Paragraphs" gives Brichester a horror fanzine, Spirited, while "Potential" describes an underground paper, the International Times.
"Cold Print" refers to Brichester's Ultimate Press, who are described as publishing the medieval heretic Johannes Henricus Pott, a new 12th volume of the Revelations of Glaaki, and a line of bondage-related pornography. Brichester also has the True Light Press, mentioned in "The Franklyn Paragraphs", which turns out to be Roland Franklyn's self-publishing operation.
Brichester Central Library appears in "The Franklyn Paragraphs", where Errol Undercliffe notes of it, "You couldn't get farther from a Lovecraft setting." It does, however, carry a copy of Roland Franklyn's We Pass From View--as well as Ramsey Campbell's The Inhabitant of the Lake.
"Potential" opens at the town's Cooperative Hall, site of "Brichester's First Be-In—Free Flowers and Bells!" (The name of one of the bands that plays the be-in, the Faveolate Collosi, alludes to Campbell's story "The Mine on Yuggoth".) The Co-operative Social Club is also referred to in "The Interloper".
Brichester University
While "The Enchanted Fruit" mentions "the hard bleached University smashing and swallowing ornate facades", in The Darkest Part of the Woods, Brichester University's architecture is more traditional, with a "long lofty Gothic facade and...high pointed windows". An "echoing vaulted sandstone corridor" leads from "the towering front doors of the university".One of the first mentions of Brichester University is in "The Horror From the Bridge", where it is said "they were familiar with things whose existence is not recognized by science." In that story, Philip Chesterton, formerly a librarian at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, takes a job in the university's library in 1901 in order to keep an eye on strange goings on in Clotton. The library once kept copies, in a locked case, of "the Necronomicon
Necronomicon
The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in the stories by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in...
, the Revelations of Glaaki, De Vermis Mysteriis
De Vermis Mysteriis
De Vermis Mysteriis, or Mysteries of the Worm, is a fictional grimoire created by Robert Bloch and incorporated by H. P. Lovecraft into the lore of the Cthulhu Mythos.-Creation:...
, and other titles as ominous", but in the 1960s "a Muslim student...spray(ed) them with lighter fluid and set fire to them," destroying them completely.
In "The Mine on Yuggoth", Brichester native Edward Taylor enrolled in the university in 1918, where he "led a witch cult, centering round a stone slab in the woods off the Severnford road." Taylor, along with other participants including "the artist Nevil Craughan and the occultist Henry Fisher", were subsequently expelled.
There is a science-fiction shop, Worlds Unlimited, near the University campus "in the dilapidated Victorian streets that had become the student quarter". In the same neighborhood is the Scholar's Rest: "Beneath a jauntily sagging slate roof the squat sandstone building faced the university campus.... Each window of the pub held a swelling like a great blind eye.... (T)he dim low-timbered interior was lined with old books." The pub's strongest ale is called Witch's Brew. Another near-campus dining option is Peace & Beans, a vegetarian restaurant with "rough wooden tables" and a clientele of "students and a few health-conscious oldsters".
Mercy Hill
Mercy Hill, a Brichester neighbourhood with "ribs of terraced streets", stands out in Campbell's world for its "mundanity", as he describes the scene in "The Franklyn Paragraphs":- In the streets couples were taking their ice-creams for a walk; toward the Hill tennis-balls were punctuating their pauses, girls were leaping, bowls were clicking and from the houses behind a procession was bearing trays of cakes to the pavilion.
In the same story, however, at the "bottom of Mercy Hill" is Dee Terrace, the address of the house of Roland Franklyn, which is described as "look(ing) like Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
was in residence":
n extra room had been added on the left, and its windows had been blocked out with newer brick; all the curtains, except those of one ground-floor window draped in green, were black. The house looked deserted, the more so for its garden, which could not have been tended for years; grass and weeds grew knee-high.
Mercy Hill is mentioned in "The Horror From the Bridge" as the site of a 19th century prison; in "The Moon Lens", Mercy Hill Hospital is the name of the institution where, in 1961, Roy Leakey seeks mercy killing from Dr. James Linwood, an advocate of euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
. The story "The Mine on Yuggoth" records that Edward Taylor was taken to Mercy Hill Hospital after his 1924 ascent of Devil's Steps, and that ever since his X-rays have been kept in a restricted file.
Franklyn is buried in the graveyard next to Mercy Hill Hospital, where
illows, their branches glowing stippled curves, were spaced carefully toward the Hill out of which the cemetery was carved; in the hill itself were catacombs, black behind ivy or railings, and above stood the hospital, a grey reminder of hope or despair.... The avenues were guarded by broken-nosed angels yearning heavenward; one showed a leprous patch where her left eye and cheek had sloughed away. Urns stood here and there like empty glasses at a sick bed.
In The Darkest Part of the Woods, its said that
Lower Brichester
The seedier side of town is known as Lower Brichester, a neighborhood described in "The Franklyn Paragraphs" as "the sort of miniature cosmopolis one finds in most major English towns: three-storey houses full of errant lodgers, curtains as varied as flags at a conference but more faded, the occasional smashed pane, the frequent furtive watchers." In "The Tugging", a tale with an apocalyptic theme, the neighbourhood is depicted as being in an advanced state of "dereliction":- Dogs scrabbled clattering in gouged shop-fronts, an uprooted streetlamp lay across a road, humped earth was scattered with disembowelled mattresses, their entrails fluttering feebly. He passed houses where one window was blinded with brick, the next still open and filmy with a drooping curtain.... (W)hole streets were derelict...gaping houses and uneven pavements.... Houses went by, shoulder to shoulder, ribs open to the sky, red-brick fronts revealing their jumble of shattered walls and staircases.
The observer finds himself sympathizing with the district's "abandonment, and indifference to time".
In "The Franklyn Paragraphs", Lower Brichester's Pitt Street is the address of Errol Undercliffe (1937–1967), a writer who specializes in "contemporary treatments of traditional macabre themes". In "The Tugging", it's the location of the Brichester Arts Lab, a program run by Annabel Pringle that practices "associational painting"—a technique that uses free association
Free association (psychology)
Free association is a technique used in psychoanalysis which was originally devised by Sigmund Freud out of the hypnotic method of his mentor and coworker, Josef Breuer....
to discover images, starting with suggestions from the I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
.
"Cold Print" takes place in Lower Brichester at a bookshop known only in the story as American Books Bought and Sold. This store was the site of a manifestation of the entity Y'golonac
Y'golonac
Y'golonac is a fictional deity in the Cthulhu Mythos. He is the creation of Ramsey Campbell and first appeared in his short story "Cold Print" .-Summary:...
.
Lakeside Terrace
North of Brichester is the body of water referred to in the story "The Inhabitant of the Lake". Supposedly once a meteor crater, the lake is overlooked by a row of houses, called Lakeside Terrace, built to serve as dwellings for a small cult who worshipped the extraterrestrial being GlaakiGlaaki
Glaaki is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. Glaaki first appeared in "The Inhabitant of the Lake" , an early story by Ramsey Campbell.-Glaaki in the mythos:...
. Led by one Thomas Lee and remaining at the lake from 1790 until shortly after 1865, the cult received the Revelations of Glaaki as dream-sendings, and published an expurgated nine-volume set from an original 11-volume manuscript. Long after the cult's disappearance, painter Thomas Cartwright took up residence at Lakeview Terrace, where he worked on the painting The Thing in the Lake before his mysterious demise.
The Devil's Steps
As described in "The Mine on Yuggoth", the Devil's Steps are a "rock formation beyond Brichester" that
- stretched fully 200 feet up in a series of steps to a plateau; from some way off the illusion of a giant staircase was complete, and legend had it that Satan came from the sky to walk the earth by way of those steps.... In the center of the plateau stood three stone towers joined by narrow catwalks of black metal between the roofs.... The (central) tower was about 30 feet high, windowless and with a strangely angled doorway opening on stairs leading into blackness.
At the top of the tower is a dimensional gate to the planet Yuggoth
Yuggoth
Yuggoth is a fictional planet in the Cthulhu Mythos. H. P. Lovecraft himself said that Yuggoth is the then newly-discovered planet Pluto. However, other writers claim that it is actually an enormous, trans-Neptunian world that orbits perpendicular to the ecliptic of the solar system.-In the...
. The towers are surrounded by an "alien species" of fungus, with "a grey stem covered with twining leaves" that uncurl toward approaching visitors.
Goatswood
Goatswood, first detailed in the story "The Moon-Lens", is an isolated town surrounded by woods to the east of Brichester. The narrator of that story is struck by the town's atmosphere: "The close-set dull-red roofs, the narrow streets, the encircling forests—all seemed somehow furtive." As in Lovecraft's InnsmouthInnsmouth
Innsmouth is a fictional town in the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Lovecraft Country setting of the Cthulhu Mythos.Lovecraft first used the name "Innsmouth" in his 1920 short story "Celephaïs" , where it refers to a fictional town in New England...
, the residents of Goatswood have a distinctive, offputting appearance; a typical resident is described as "revoltingly goatlike", resembling "a medieval woodcut of a satyr
Satyr
In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....
", and clad in "grotesquely voluminous" garments.
The most prominent feature of Goatswood is the titular Moon-Lens: A "metal pylon, 50 feet high, rose from the center of the square. At the top (is)...a large convex lens surrounded by an arrangement of mirrors, and all hinged on a pivot attached to the ground by taut ropes." It is said by a perhaps unreliable character to have been built by the Romans
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
.
Goatswood is sometimes an unavoidable connection on the train route from Exham to Brichester. The infrequent visitors to Goatswood, "The Moon Lens" reveals, eat at the Station Cafe and stay at the Central Hotel.
In a later story, "Made in Goatswood", the village has more to offer to outsiders: a curiosity shop with a toad-like proprietor whose "hands were brown and crinkled as the paper in which he wrapped the parcels", selling disturbing lawn ornaments; a fruit stand in a "canvas stall like a shrine" where fruit resembling peaches are offered by a girl whose "eyelids lowered wickedly". There's even a red light district, Fitzroy Street, on the edge of town:
efore the woods closed in, a last street of dingy houses lay exhausted between gardens high with grass, uneven with rocks, and on the corner a newspaper-shop, its cramped windows full of yellow cards; baked mud preserved the tracks of cars.
"The Franklyn Paragraphs" mentions a number of places visited by "the circle of young men" around occultist Roland Franklyn—Goatswood among them.
In the "woods toward toward Goatswood" is a clearing, according to "The Insects of Shaggai", where a "meteorite" fell in the 17th century; a coven that subsequently worshipped there was executed by real-life witchfinder Matthew Hopkins
Matthew Hopkins
Matthew Hopkins was an English witchhunter whose career flourished during the time of the English Civil War. He claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was never bestowed by Parliament...
. In the clearing may be found a mysterious gray cone, home to the titular creatures; the story "The Moon Lens" alludes to this artifact.
These woods also feature in "The Enchanted Fruit", whose protagonist at first finds them enticing—"Each corridor of trees seemed made to be explored, each green shadow promised mystery"—and later forbidding: "A screen of leaves seemed secretive; parted, it revealed only vistas of dim branches." In the forest, he finds a tree whose "rich trunk, dark yet warm, stood alone on a mound of autumn built high from the edge of the glade"; he eats the fruit of this tree, "large as apples, soft and shaped as peaches", to his immediate delight and later regret.
Temphill
Temphill is the main setting for "The Church in High Street", Campbell's first published Severn Valley story. There it is described as a "decaying Cotswold town" and "a place of ill repute". Describing the town, the narrator notes that- around the blackened hotel at the center of Temphill, the buildings were often greatly dilapidated...gabled dwellings, often with broken windows and patchily unpainted fronts, but still inhabited. Here scattered unkempt children stared resignedly from dusty front steps or played in pools of orange mud on a patch of waste ground, while the older tenants sat in twilit rooms.
The church of the title is set on a hill near the center of town, around which the town was built. It is said to exist "conterminously" with a temple of Yog-Sothoth
Yog-Sothoth
Yog-Sothoth is a cosmic entity of the fictional Cthulhu Mythos and the Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft. Yog-Sothoth's name was first mentioned in his novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward...
. It is described:
- The steps...rose between green ruins of brick walls to the black steeple of a church among pallid gravestones.... The tottering gravestones, overgrown with repulsively decaying vegetation, cast curious shadows over the fungus-strewn grass.
Those who penetrate the catacombs beneath the church—reached via a trap door under the first set of pews—find themselves unaccountably unable to leave the town, as if the streets were turning back on themselves.
In "The Church on High Street", Temphill is home to John Clothier, "a man possessed of an extraordinary amount of ancient knowledge", and to Albert Young, a young man working on a "book on witchcraft and witchcraft lore". In the subsequent story "The Horror From the Bridge", Temphill is where James Phipps acquires "extremely rare chemicals", as well as his mysterious wife.
"The Franklyn Paragraphs" lists Temphill as one of the places that "the circle of young men" around Roland Franklyn visit. Franklyn's widow, complaining about the horrors he had put her through, says, "He took me down to Temphill and made me watch those things dancing on the graves."
Severnford
Severnford, a community on the River Severn almost directly northwest of Brichester, is described in "The Plain of Sound" as a dull place to visit:- Once one leaves behind the central area of Severnford where a group of archaic buildings is preserved, and comes to the surrounding red-brick houses, there is little to interest the sight-seer. Much of Severnford is dockland, and even the country beyond is not noticeably pleasant to the forced hiker.... (S)ome of the roads are noticeably rough.
The forced is a reference to the fact there is only one bus daily from Severnford to Brichester, which leaves in the morning; if visitors miss it, walking may be the only alternative. It is a full morning's walk away, and the route is not well-marked. (The motor route between Brichester and Severnford passes by "(h)ills...like sleeping collosi".)
One attraction is the Inn at Severnford, a facility in central Severnford which is said to be "one of the oldest (inns) in England". However, in 1958 it was found to be "temporarily" closed to the public, reportedly because of repeated vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
.
Severnford and its outskirts are the main setting of Campbell's "The Room in the Castle", in which the Anglican church in Severnford is noted for having "a stone carving depicting an angel holding a large star-shaped object
Elder Sign
The Elder Sign is an icon in the Cthulhu Mythos, first mentioned in H. P. Lovecraft's The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, written in 1926.-Description:...
in front of a cowering toad-like object."
The castle of the title is a ruined mansion on the outskirts of town, past Cotton Row: "It was set on the crest of the hill, three walls still standing, though the roof had long ago collapsed. A lone tower stood like a charred finger against the pale sky." It was once the home of Sir Gilbert Morley, described as an "18th-century warlock" who imprisoned the Great Old One Byatis
Byatis
Byatis is a fictional deity in the Cthulhu Mythos. The Great Old One was first mentioned in Robert Bloch's short story "The Shambler From the Stars", originally published in the September 1935 issue of Weird Tales...
in the castle's basement.
Campbell returned to Severnford in the story "Potential", a setting in which "(t)he streets were lit by gaslamps, reflected flickering in windows set in dark moist stone." The climactic scene of that story is set in a disused Severnford pub called The Riverside, used as a sort of clubhouse by cultists who listen to Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
and read Roland Franklyn and Ultimate Press pornography. There is a suggestion that the Severnford authorities are complicit in the cult's activities: "Oh, the police know about this," one cult member says. "They're used to it by now, they don't interfere."
About two-and-a-half miles (by foot) out of Severnford, after passing a "thickly overgrown forest, where (one) would certainly have become further lost," and crossing "montonous fields (without) seeing a building or another human being," one comes to "an area of grassy hillocks", followed by a region of "miniature valleys". It is in one of these that the title phenomenon of "The Plain of Sound" was encountered, next to a house once inhabited by former Brichester University professor Arnold Hird. The peculiar auditory phenomenon can become a gate to the Gulf of S'glhuo.
In the story "The Faces at Pine Dunes", Severnford is named by the fictional book Witchcraft in England as one of several centers of witchcraft activity—apparently the only place in the Severn Valley so listed.
The Island beyond Severnford
The island beyond Severnford is referred to in the title of the story "The Stone on the Island". Notes found in the story describe it:- Approx. 200 feet across. roughly circular. Little vegetation except short grass. Ruins of RomanRoman mythologyRoman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
temple to unnamed deity at centre of island (top of slight hill). Opp. side of hill from Severnford, about 35 ft. down, artificial hollow extending back 10 ft. and containing stone.
- Island continuously site of place of worship. Poss. pre-Roman nature deity (stone predates Roman occupation); the Roman temple built. In medieval times witchEuropean witchcraftEuropean Witchcraft is witchcraft and magic that is practised primarily in the locality of Europe.-Antiquity:Instances of persecution of witchcraft are documented from Classical Antiquity, paralleling evidence from the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament.In Ancient Greece, for example, Theoris,...
supposed to live on island. In 17th cen. witchcult met there and invoked water elementalsElementalAn elemental is a mythological being first appearing in the alchemical works of Paracelsus in the 16th century. Traditionally, there are four types:*gnomes, earth elementals*undines , water elementals*sylphs, air elementals...
. In all cases stone avoided. Circa 1790 witchcult disbanded, but stray believers continued to visit.
In the 19th century the island became associated with a series of shocking mutilations. Victims, only some of whom survive the ordeal, began with witchcult follower Joseph Norton in 1803, followed by Severnford clergyman Nevill Rayner in 1826, an unnamed prostitute in 1866 who was taken to Brichester Central Hospital, the folk customs
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
investigator of 1870 Alan Thorpe, a Brichester University student in 1930, and Mercy Hill paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
researcher Dr. Stanley Nash and his son Michael (the latest victim) in 1962.
"The island beyond Severnford" is visited by Franklyn's circle in "The Franklyn Paragraphs". The island is reachable via "a small hut" "on the edge of the docks" that advertises, "Hire a boat and see the Severn at its best!"
Clotton
Clotton, the scene of Campbell's "Dunwich HorrorThe Dunwich Horror
"The Dunwich Horror" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales . It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts...
" pastiche, "The Horror From the Bridge", is a small town set where the river Ton flows into the Severn. Only a "few leaning red-brick houses...remain of the uptown section of the once-prosperous town"; the rest of the town was deliberately destroyed in 1931, for reasons explained in the story. In "The Horror Under Warrendown", Clotton is mentioned as "a small settlement which appeared to be largely abandoned, its few occupied houses huddling together on each side of a river." The story notes the town's "stagnant almost reptilian smell and chilly haze."
The town's most noteworthy feature, also dating to 1931, is a "20-foot high concrete building...on the bank of the Ton", with an "eldritch sign clumsily engraved on each wall", carvings that "were blurred by moss and weather".
The town was once home to James Phipps, "a gaunt pallid-faced man with jet-black hair and long bony hands" who died in 1898, aged well over a century, and his son Lionel Phipps (1806–1931). Both were odd individuals given to "unorthodox scientific researches" and nocturnal excavation. They lived on Riverside Alley, "a little-tenanted street within sight of a bridge over the Ton".
Outside of Clotton, according to "The Horror From the Bridge", there is a "pit on a patch of waste ground on what used to be Canning Road, near the river," containing "roughly-cut steps, each carrying a carven five-pointed sign, which led down into abysmal darkness."
In "The Franklyn Paragraphs", which mentions Clotton as another place visited by the Franklyn circle, Franklyn's widow notes that "we went down the steps below Clotton."
Camside
Camside is home to the occultist Henry Fisher, who summons the Elder God Daoloth in the story "The Render of the Veils". The town's paper, the Camside Observer, is mentioned in that story, as well as in "The Room in the Castle", which also notes that the town was the home of James Phipps, until he was expelled in 1800 for practicing weird science, resettling in Clotton.In "The Mine on Yuggoth", Edward Taylor is committed to the Camside Home for the Mentally Disturbed in 1924, after his ascent of the Devil's Steps.
Warrendown
In "The Horror Under Warrendown", written for the 1995 Severn Valley anthology Made in Goatswood, Campbell introduced Warrendown, a village off the main road between BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
and Brichester. (Clotton, the story notes, is between Brichester and Warrendown.) The narrator describes it as
- an insignificant huddle of buildings miles from anywhere.... Where the road descended to the level of the village it showed me that the outermost cottages were so squat they appeared to have collapsed or to be sinking into the earth of the unpaved road. Thatch obscured their squinting windows.... At the center of Warrendown the cottages, some of which I took to be shops without signs, crowded towards the road as if forced by the mounds behind them, mounds as broad as the cottages but lower, covered with thatch or grass. Past the center the buildings were more sunken; more than one had collapsed, while others were so overgrown that only glimpses through the half-obscured unglazed windows of movements, ill-defined and sluggish, suggested that they were inhabited.
Near the edge of the village, which is only half a mile wide, there is a school, described as "one long mound fattened by a pelt of thatch and grass and moss." The school is connected to a rotting, half-ruined church that "once possessed a tower, the overgrown stones of which were scattered beyond the edge of the village." Inside the church, "the dozen or so pews on either side of the aisle, each pew broad enough to accommodate a large family, were only bloated green with moss and weeds; but the altar before them had been levered up, leaning its back against the rear wall of the church and exposing the underside of its stone." Where the altar used to be is the entrance to a system of tunnels that lead to the entity referred to in the story's title.
The air in the village is filled with a "rotten vegetable sweetness". The inhabitants, like those of Lovecraft's Innsmouth
Innsmouth
Innsmouth is a fictional town in the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Lovecraft Country setting of the Cthulhu Mythos.Lovecraft first used the name "Innsmouth" in his 1920 short story "Celephaïs" , where it refers to a fictional town in New England...
, share a "look", but while the people of Innsmouth resemble frogs, those of Warrendown call to mind rabbits, with "plump yet flattish face(s)" that sometimes appear furry, "swollen" eyes, "bestial" teeth, and outsized ears and feet.