Severn Valley

The Severn Valley is the setting of several fictional towns and other locations created by horror writer Ramsey Campbell. Part of the Cthulhu Mythos begun by H. P. Lovecraft, the fictional milieu is arguably the most detailed mythos setting outside of Lovecraft Country itself.
In his early writings, Campbell used the setting of Lovecraft's stories, in the fictional New England area of the Miskatonic River valley. Fellow Lovecraftian writer August Derleth suggested that instead of copying the older works, Campbell should instead use a setting that he knew personally: his hometown of Liverpool. Campbell's creation of Severn Valley is a reflection of the English countryside that he knew well. By the mid-60s, Campbell acknowledges that "my invented town of Brichester, originally intended as the Severn Valley equivalent of Lovecraft's Arkham, was Liverpool by now in all but name."
==Real-world location==
The River Severn is an actual river in Wales and western England. Campbell's stories mention various real-world locales, including the Cotswold Hills, Berkeley (in "The Church in High Street"), and the A38 road ("The Room in the Castle"). 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.
==Ramsey Campbell ==
Campbell invented his locales, when, as a 15-year-old Lovecraft fan, he submitted Lovecraftian pastiches, set in Lovecraft's New England, 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 teenage 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 metafictional 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.
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 Arkham 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."
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, — as well as a radio station, Radio Brichester. "The Franklyn Paragraphs" gives Brichester a horror fanzine, Spirited. "Cold Print" refers to Brichester's Ultimate Press. 
Brichester Central Library appears in "The Franklyn Paragraphs", where Errol Undercliffe notes of it, "You couldn't get farther from a Lovecraft setting." "Potential" opens at the town's Cooperative Hall.
===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." 
One of the first mentions of Brichester University is in "The Horror From the Bridge", where it's said "they were familiar with things whose existence is not recognized by science." In "The Mine on Yuggoth", Brichester native Edward Taylor enrolled in the university in 1918, where he "led a witch cult." 
===Mercy Hill===
Mercy Hill, a Brichester neighbourhood with "ribs of terraced streets" stands out in Campbell's world for its "mundanity", as described in "The Franklyn Paragraphs": 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".
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. The story "The Mine on Yuggoth" records that Edward Taylor was taken to Mercy Hill Hospital shortly after his failed 1924 ascent of the Devil's Steps.
Franklyn is buried in the graveyard next to Mercy Hill Hospital.
===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-story houses full of errant lodgers, curtains as varied as flags at a conference but more faded, the occasional smashed pane, and the frequent furtive watchers." While in "The Tugging", a tale with an apocalyptic theme, the neighborhood is depicted as being in an advanced state of dereliction: "(W)hole streets were derelict... gaping houses and uneven pavements."
In "The Franklyn Paragraphs", Lower Brichester's Pitt Street is the former address of writer Errol Undercliffe. In "The Tugging", it's the location of the Brichester Arts Lab.
"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.
==Lakeside Terrace==
North of Brichester is the body of water referred to in "The Inhabitant of the Lake", named as both Deepwater Falls and Deepwater Lake in Robert M. Price's short story "In Search of Lake Monsters". Supposedly once an impact crater, the lake is overlooked by a row of houses called Lakeside Terrace, built to serve as dwellings for a small cult who worshiped the extraterrestrial being Glaaki. 
==The Devil's Steps==
As described in "The Mine on Yuggoth", the Devil's Steps are a "rock formation beyond Brichester" which:
At the top of the main tower is a dimensional gate to the planet Yuggoth. 
==Goatswood==
Goatswood, first described in the short 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 Innsmouth, the residents of Goatswood have a distinctive, offputting appearance; a typical resident is described as "revoltingly goatlike". Instead of worshiping a race of monsters from the sea (the Deep Ones), however, they worship Shub-Niggurath.
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." 
Goatswood is sometimes an unavoidable connection on the train route from Exham to Brichester. 
In a later story, "Made in Goatswood", the village has more to offer to outsiders: a curiosity shop selling disturbing lawn ornaments; a fruit stand where fruit resembling peaches are offered. There's even a red light district, Fitzroy Street, on the edge of town:
In the "woods toward Goatswood" is a clearing, according to "The Insects from Shaggai", where a meteorite once fell in the 17th century; a coven that subsequently worshiped there was executed by real-life witchfinder Matthew Hopkins. Within the clearing is a mysterious gray cone, home to the titular creatures. These woods are also featured in "The Enchanted Fruit".
==Temphill==
Temphill is the main setting for "The Church in High Street", Campbell's first published story in the Severn Valley. There it is described as a "decaying Cotswold town" and "a place of ill repute." Describing the town, the narrator notes that:
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 beneath 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 formerly 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:
The forced is a reference to the fact there is only one bus-route daily from Severnford to Brichester.
One attraction is the Inn at Severnford, a facility in central Severnford which is said to be "one of the oldest (inns) in England". 
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, 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". The climactic scene of that story is set in a disused Severnford pub called The Riverside, used as a sort of clubhouse by cultists. 
About two-and-a-half miles (by foot) out of Severnford, one comes to 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:
In the 19th century, the island became associated with a series of shocking deaths and mutilations. 
==Clotton==
Clotton, the scene of Campbell's "Dunwich Horror" 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, 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 Outer God Daoloth in the story "The Render of the Veils". Fisher was expelled from Brichester University in "The Mine on Yuggoth". The town's paper, the Camside Observer, is mentioned in that story, as well as in "The Horror from the Bridge", 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 Birmingham 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, 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.
==Other Writers==
Made in Goatswood, edited by Scott David Aniolowski, and published by Chaosium, 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.
Several pieces in the Ramsey Campbell-inspired collection The Children of Gla'aki are also set in the Severn Valley.
Category:Locations Originating From Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Regions/Territories