Travels through Farynshire: EassenBren

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I realise we are already three posts into our Grand Tour and we haven’t left Rookpot.  I promise we will!  But we have to quickly stop off at EassenBren first.

If Dameg Square is the administrative and cultural centre of the city (and the county), EassenBren is its artistic heart.

It sits on a slope.  Rookpot’s theatre, Ye Reven, overlooks the Square from its elevated position.  It has been inspired by the temples of Ancient Greece, but each classical pillar is a bright block of colour: rich purple, blood red, sky blue, sun yellow, lime green.  Branching out on either side of it down the slope are two rows of very different buildings.

On one side is a terrace of five-storey, pastel coloured Georgian houses, with baskets on chains hanging outside the front doors that pedestrians have to duck to avoid.  The baskets are full of geraniums, peonies and sometimes herbs.  These face the artists’ workshops: protected by a long roof covered in slate tiles.  The smells of oils, paints and clays waft around the Square.

In the middle of the Square is EassenBren’s fountain.  Dameg’s fountain was designed by an architect who really liked black oblongs.  EassenBren’s is a perpetual work in progress.  It is an evergrowing collection of earthen artworks produced by the craftsmen in the covered workshops.  Every artist creates a small figurine, usually a grotesque caricature of themselves, which is placed in the fountain.  There are also some larger pieces loitering near or in the water.  A carpet of coins from all over the world and from different eras glitter under the water.

Felix headed straight for The Lilac Beech.

This is the lavender building in the middle of the Georgian terrace.  A faded wooden sign, adorned with what looks like a peeling painting of a bunch of grapes but is more probably a peeling painting of a tree, hangs over the door.  The large cross-latticed windows display piles of pristine books, and posters advertising upcoming events.  As Felix pushed the door open the bell above us tinkled and we were hit by the smell of new books.

The ground floor of the shop is open plan with displays scattered throughout.  Every wall is lined with books, floor to ceiling, except at the far end where there is a large fireplace, occupied by a huge earthen pot filled with rose and lily petals in the summer.  It is surrounded by squashy armchairs, wingback chairs, and a few beanbags.  The children’s area is on the far side of the shop from the fireplace, strewn with cardboard books and toys on colourful fluffy rugs.  Rising up from the middle of the shop is a wrought iron staircase wound tight like a corkscrew.  The door to the courtyard at the back of the shop was open to let the warm summer sun in.  The pale purple leaves of the rare and ancient tree that gives the shop its name shine with summer glory.

It was tempting to sit by the cool fireplace, browse a few books, and maybe have a cup of sweet tea, but we had a train to catch.

Felix bought Walking and Wine in the Bloon Peaks to guide us through the mountains, The Living Forests for Gnivil and Oes, and Meyricks, Musril and Mermaids for when we reached the coast.

There was no need for us to rush.  Our train would not depart for another twenty minutes.

I think the best way – certainly the most dramatic way – to leave Rookpot is via The Drop.

On maps, The Drop is Newton Hill, the steepest street in the city.  There are handrails on either pavement to help pedestrians stay upright.  There are frequent petitions to the Council for a chairlift to be installed, but this is not considered a good use of public money, and would negatively impact upon the medieval aesthetics; and besides, exercise is good for people.  I do feel for anyone who has to work on The Drop, though, especially the baristas at Lacey’s, the coffee shop that sits at the top, looking straight down the hill.

We decided we had time to get an iced bun from Lacey’s.  The important thing about the buns is not the flavour – often not discernible beyond sweet and bordering on sickening – but the colour.  You can request any colour of icing.  Felix chose turquoise; I always had forest green.

Walking down The Drop with dignity takes practice.  I will strongly advise now, though no one will heed my heartfelt warning, not to attempt this whilst drunk, no matter how much money is involved in the dare. Doing it sober is enough of a challenge. Those of a nervous disposition use the rail; the more experienced manage to keep upright by themselves; children run and quite often do not end up in a crying heap at the bottom.  Perhaps a wiser investment than a chairlift would be crash mats at the foot of The Drop.

We landed safely enough and made our way to the grand Victorian train station, finishing off the iced buns as we boarded the train.

When Felix had said, right at the start of planning the trip, that we were going to take the long way round to his family home on the coast, he wasn’t kidding.  The first place we were going to from Rookpot was the Daggerrock Mountains – in the exact opposite direction from the coast.

by Mabel Govitt 

Travels through Farynshire: Dameg Square

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The most famous city in Farynshire, possibly the only place anyone over the mountains has heard of, is Rookpot.

It sprawls over a steep tor that is cut in two by a deep dark gorge, along the bottom of which flow the cold waters of the Darkflint River.

When people think of Rookpot it’s the gorge that they immediately picture.  Then it’s the Squares surrounded by cobbled streets and Cuts.  This medieval heart of the city is great to explore: there’s always a new boutique, gallery or bookstore to discover in the warren of narrow alleys that no car could ever get through.  That’s the other thing everyone notices: all the bikes, scooters, and lately segues and blades – because these are the only modes of transport that can go everywhere in the city.  Buses have to skirt the outside of the medieval centre and use the the wider, more modern roads.  Trains come in at the city’s only station, at the base of the tor.  We had decided that this is how we would leave Rookpot.

If students are lucky they will get accommodation on Wessentor – which is the half of the city with the Squares, history and night life.  Felix and I had been in halls at the bottom of Wessentor in our first year, which is where we had met.  In our second year we had had to move, and the only affordable place we could find was on Eassentor.  Eassentor is not a bad place to live or anything, but it’s just so ordinary compared to what’s over the gorge.  There are streets of terraced houses on Wessentor’s lower slopes, as well as some discreet luxury apartments near the centre, and the very expensive villas close to the summit of the tor.  But most Rookpotians lived in the more ordinary suburbia on Eassentor, which was encroaching slowly and inevitably off the tor and into the countryside below.

Neither of us wanted to leave Rookpot from Eassentor.  So, with our backpacks making us look like tourists in our own city, we made our way across one of the many bridges that span the gorge, and went to Dameg Square.

Dameg Square is the centre of Rookpot in every sense.  It is halfway up the tor and the gorge cuts through its ancient cobbles and the neat rectangle of grass right in the middle.

I have spent a lot of time in this Square.  The Museum and the Library stand next to each other, and face the ancient Cathedral (the foundations of which were laid in the thirteenth century) and the Council Chambers.  The green in the centre of the Square is home to a solitary oak tree that seemed to be dead for all of the time I had been at university; it is bent almost double, long branches dangling down into the gorge.

The Square is always busy, night or day.  We bought slushes from Rhewogydd.  Rhewogydd has been providing ice slushes to the Council workers, families, tourists, and students hustling through Dameg Square for at least twenty five years, and his pink van near the edge of the gorge is a sure sign of summer.  His ever-growing menu is bound in a novel-sized tome.  I recommend the cherry and rum for pure velvet indulgence, but if you want refreshing coolness on a sweltering hot day – and you don’t fancy jumping into the fountain – you have to go with mint and cucumber.

We sat on the wide white Museum steps to drink our slushes and people-watched.  It was a hot day in June so the bustle was a little fatigued, except in the fountain where children and students splashed.  The office workers, shirt sleeves rolled up to their elbows, ties loose and untidy, made the most of their brief escape.

A story time event had just finished in the Library, and the parents with prams were milling about outside, the adults chattering loudly, their small children chasing each other around in the safety of the Square.  When I had first arrived in Rookpot as a fresher I had been horrified at the sight of small children – or drunk students, or Council workers staring at their phones – shrieking and playing excitedly close to a chasm plunging hundreds of feet to a fierce river below.  But I had gone completely native, and was now confident that no child would fall.

There was nothing – no barrier, fence, not even cones – to stop anyone from plummeting into the gorge, yet nobody ever seemed to.  Only seven people had ever died this way in the whole history of the city.  The gorge was narrow in Dameg Square, and brazen Rookpotians casually jumped across on their way to work, hardly breaking their stride.

The exhibition in the Museum was Coastal Treasures, advertised on the listless banners hanging over the steps.  I had been a week before, and it was an interesting exploration of the expeditions and research focused on the coves and beaches along Farynshire’s coast between Tropsog and Sylnmouth, and the shipwrecks and treasures that had been discovered beneath the waves.  Felix was inspired to go scuba diving when we reached the coast.  I was less keen, and hoped he would forget this notion by the time we reached the sea.  He was also inspired to buy a few guide books, which I was much more on board with.

Sipping on our slushes, we made our way along the edge of the gorge to the Cut that linked Dameg Square with EassenBren.  Rookpot was riddled with these Cuts: long, winding, red-bricked alleys lit by old iron lanterns even on a sunny summer day.  This was the most famous and well-used Cut as it linked the two most important Squares.

By Mabel Govitt 

Travels through Farynshire: The first post

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So this is the first post on this website.  Big responsibility.

I should explain what’s going on.

My name is Mabel Govitt, and I’ve just graduated from Rookpot University.  Last summer me and my friend decided to explore this extraordinary county.  Adam Court (something to do with the Tourist Board, I think) asked us to write about our experiences in a series of blog posts.  This is the first of those.

So, just before my final Musril in Context exam at the end of my final year, Felix came up with a plan.

“Mabel.  Why don’t you come with me this summer?  Stay at my house, meet the family.”

There is always a slightly odd emphasis on family whenever Felix speaks of the extended ap Hullin clan that seem to occupy an entire village on the coast.  Before I could scramble up an excuse, he went on:

“We can go the long way round – see a bit of Farynshire.  Go to the mountains, the big forests, Sylnmouth and Riversouth.”

This was a more attractive prospect.  I had spent two years at Rookpot University, and although I felt I had got to know the capital fairly well in that time, I had not explored the county of Farynshire at all.  I was studying its history, culture and languages, most of my lecturers had local interest or specialism, and I had visited exhibitions at the Museum, Library and various galleries on the city’s steep slopes.  But I had never ventured into the mountains that separated the county from the rest of England, or visited the dramatic coast where Felix was from, or the forests and countryside inbetween.

I didn’t want to spend the summer months waiting at home in Bristol to see if I had made it into the third year (spoiler alert: I did). I needed a distraction.

We used the time between studying for exams, panicking about exams, and taking exams to research our trip.

I had thought that Felix, born and raised in Tor Calon on the coast, would know a lot more about his county than I, a more recent student of its wonders, did.  But, as it turned out, I knew more about why Musril was spoken most widely in Riversouth, how Rookpot came to be the capital, and the difference between peers and magnates.  He had heard of all of these things, but they were just background noise to Farynshire natives.  This was one of the reasons Felix wanted to travel: I was always educating him on his own county, which he found interesting, but:

“You can’t learn it all from books and museums.  You have to go out there and live it.”

I agreed.  There were so many places in this small county that I wanted to see – and visiting Felix’s family could be interesting to.

By the time of my last exam (Museums, Masques and Festivities: Cultural Appreciation Throughout the Years) we had a rough itinerary.  We did not want it to be too detailed because the whole idea was to be spontaneous and adventurous.

The obvious starting point was Rookpot.

Please join us.  🙂

By Mabel Govitt