Fake Britain Map

As Britain is apparently now poised to separate itself from the rest of the planet, run away and hide somewhere, thanks to what passes for "democracy" (more accurately, how it's been applied) in these places, this seems an apt point to mention this delightful map, drawn in a simple, modern, linear style, primarily so as the vast array of place-names can be clearly shown.

Fake Britain: A Map of Fictional Locations In England, Scotland And Wales.

There's access to a larger version of the map (so you can explore in detail) and a complete gazetteer listing of the (currently) 891 places identified upon it available from the above webpage link.

Dependent upon how familiar you are with the items and places involved, you may well spend hours poring over it. I even have a location for Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh now (something probably too old and obscure for many PF Forum visitors, I fear, but if you need a quick Wikipedia link, here it is; I know it only from the surviving repeats, incidentally - so am not quite THAT old). Something perhaps more familiar will be the location of Causton and Midsomer county from the long-running TV series "Midsomer Murders", or places from the Harry Potter novels. And I was only trying to find a map for Ramsey Campbell's "Severn Valley" Lovecraftian horror stories online today...

Comments

  • edited January 2020
    The Castle of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh! Our quest is at an end! (teeheeheeeheeeee)

    Thank you for this! I'm having a ball finding so many of my favorite literary and tv/movie places :)
  • ScottAScottA Surveyor
    Do you still need that map of Ramsey Campbell's Severn Valley, Wyvern? I have one if you need it. I've known Ramsey for many years and have done a couple of books in his honor, one included a map.
    Map.jpg 53.1K
  • Thanks Scott. I found this one online, and also a rather nice modern style reworking by TheMightyGoatMan on Reddit here. The latter doesn't have a scale, for reasons outlined in the accompany posting, but it looks most believable!

    However, and far more embarrassingly, after I'd finished my online hunting, I eventually remembered I actually have a hard copy of Chaosium's "Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood and Less Pleasant Places" from 2001, which of course is where that map's from, and which I'd guess you might recall yourself Scott... [For everyone else: Scott was lead author for it!]

    Lorelei: Glad you're having fun! There's just so much to the whole thing - yet it's still incomplete, due to the nature and quantity of fictional works involved.
  • ScottAScottA Surveyor
    There is, of course, also the very first, original map of Ramsey's town from his first Arkham House book, The Inhabitant of the Lake. I have that one somewhere, as well. Actually, the map I posted was first published in an anthology I edited, Made in Goatswood, which was a tribute to Mr. Campbell.
  • Yes, I came across The Inhabitant of the Lake map online as well, and although it had been obviously scanned from a hardback book, I didn't spot mention that that was where it was from - though I was really just map-hunting, so could have missed it easily.

    And you're just doing this now to make me feel bad, as I see the spine for Made in Goatswood every day on my bookshelves, yet never thought to look in it for a map... In my defence, it IS around 20 years since I last read it; mustn't be wired enough (but maybe that's a good thing ;) [sorry everyone else - in-joke re Scott's own contributed short story in this anthology]). Actually, all the illustrations in it are nicely stand-out pieces, from that German expressionistic cover onwards, though I do like the frontispiece portrait of the great man himself especially.
  • Well, there really are no great maps of the area. It is on my to-do list but I haven't gotten to it yet. I think a detailed color CC3+ map of the area would be fantastic. I may get around to writing about the area again, which would push me to do the damn map finally! And it's nice to know you have the books. As an author I write them, they get published, and then are sort of gone, so it's nice when someone mentions owning and reading them!
  • Oh gosh yes! I long figured as an author that so long as nobody wrote to complain, I was doing at least an OK job...

    I actually have a shelf of the Chaosium-published Call of Cthulhu fiction anthologies, as my then-only (late 1990s) local game store used to stock them - though you had to be quick, because they didn't have many - while the array of "regional" Chaosium CoC RPG supplements were similarly purchased and devoured from back in the day. Some of those were real masterclasses in what a regional supplement should be to me, with their pull-out maps and reams of descriptions of places and things (and some of the things that were also places...). I think "Dunwich" was my favourite, because it drew on so much from Lovecraft and beyond, and added so many interesting places to explore and go insane in! I also long hoped to try coordinate running the big "Return to Innsmouth" adventure with separate groups at a games convention; sadly, that never came to pass.

    As for the Severn Valley map in CC3+, that would be great! I was also looking at some of the more folk-horror-element Midsomer Murders places, trying to see if they might be fitted-in with those in RC's Severn Valley (say on the eastern slopes of the Cotswold Hills, with places like the evocatively-named Moonstone Ridge). Unfortunately, it looks as if most commentators prefer to set the Midsomer area in Oxfordshire, which is a bit too far east for this to work (which allows me to circle back to topic here, as you can make the comparison using the Fake Britain map!). Still thinking about this though, since from a fictional gaming perspective, there's no reason why I couldn't shift Midsomer west a way, even if not "officially".
  • Wonderful! That'll keep me busy for days. And am I the only one who, upon reading "Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh", hears the theme song in their head?
  • Hi elvwood - no, you're not alone!
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