Severnford

Severnford is a fictional town created by Ramsey Campbell, part of his Severn Valley setting for Cthulhu Mythos stories. The place is introduced in Campbell's short story "The Room in the Castle".
Severnford is a community located on the real-world River Severn, almost directly northwest of Brichester. Campbell summarizes it in the introduction to The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants:
Severnford is part dockland, its buildings mostly shabby and dilapidated, including a cinema and several public-houses; beyond it is an island reputedly used as a meeting place for covens. At the center a group of historic buildings is preserved, among them an inn now closed because of vandalism.
It's described in Campbell's "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-route daily from Severnford to Brichester, which leaves in the morning. If visitors miss it, walking may be the only alternative. It's a full morning's walk away, and the route is not well-marked.
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."
In "The Stone on the Island", Cambell gives Severnford a "Harrison Hotel at the edge of dockland", several bookshops, a "grimy library"--and a police officer, Inspector Blackwood.
Campbell returned to Severnford in the story "Potential", a setting in which "(t)he streets were lit by gas-lamps, 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 the avant-garde composer 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 "monotonous 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. This peculiar phenomenon can become a gateway into 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 Roman temple to unnamed deity at the center 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 worship. Poss. pre-Roman nature deity (stone predates Roman occupation); the Roman temple built. In medieval times witch supposed to live on island. In 17th cen. witch-cult met there and invoked water elementals. In all cases stone avoided. Circa. 1790, witch-cult 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 witch-cult 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, a local folk customs investigator named Alan Thorpe in 1870, 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 is reachable via: "a small hut" "on the edge of the docks" that advertises, "Hire a boat and see the Severn at its best!" ("The Stone on the Island"). Roland Franklyn's circle makes the excursion in "The Franklyn Paragraphs".
== The Morley Castle ==
The ruins of a Norman castle once owned by Sir Gilbert Morley, an 18th century warlock, can be found "on the other side of Severnford from the river, on a rise...not far from Cotton Row," as described in the story "The Room in the Castle". A cellar room there is a prison for the entity Byatis. A 20th century visitor described what remained; "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." Legend tells how "bats seemed to cluster at the window of one particular tower room", perhaps the one tower that still stands.
Category:Locations Originating From Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Structures