The following is an incomplete
compendium of the fictional locations featured in the
stories of P.
G. Wodehouse, in alphabetical order by
place name.
The Angler's Rest
The Angler's Rest is the
pub frequented by
irrepressible raconteur
Mr Mulliner,
where his drink of choice is a Hot Scotch and Lemon. The able
barmaid's name is Miss Postlethwaite.
Beckford
A school, setting of the novel
A
Prefect's Uncle, and several
short
stories.
Belpher
A small coastal-village in
Hampshire, and
the setting for the novel
A Damsel in Distress.
Belpher was once a prosperous fishing-town made famous by the
Oyster trade, until it was discovered that
the local bay had been polluted, thus driving away much of the
tourist and fishing trade.
Local points of interest mentioned in the novel include
The
Belpher Arms, the village tavern, and
Belpher
Castle, the home of the aristocratic Marshmoreton family
since the
Wars of the Roses.
Blandings Castle
The idyllic country house
par excellence.
Blandings Parva
A small
hamlet near
Blandings Castle. The people of the village
enjoy much revelry at the annual School Treat, held on August Bank
Holiday every year in the grounds of the Castle, much to
Lord Emsworth's horror (not only does his
garden become an inferno of children, tents and paper bags, but he
is required to wear a top hat and make a speech). Blandings Parva
is also known for taking in children from London in need of fresh
air, such as
Gladys and
her brother Ern.
Brinkley Court
The seat of
Tom and
Dahlia Travers, Brinkley is the setting of a
great number of Wodehouse's
Jeeves stories
and a popular destination for
Bertie
Wooster, Dahlia's beloved nephew.
Brinkley is also the residence of the Travers' children
Angela and
Bonzo. Besides Bertie and Jeeves, it regularly
hosts a number of guests, including
Mr.
Anstruther,
Sebastian Moon, and
Thomas, son of Dahlia's sister
Agatha.
Brinkley's butler is
named Seppings and its chauffeur Waterbury,
but its most famous domestic employee is, without doubt, the
supremely gifted French
chef
Anatole.
Brinkley is said to be modeled on
Lechmere House at Severn End, Hanley Castle,
in
Worcestershire.
Bumpleigh Hall
Bumpleigh Hall is a
fictional
location, being the seat of
Bertie
Wooster's
Uncle Percy Craye, Lord
Worplesdon, and
Aunt Agatha, nearby the
rural village of
Steeple
Bumpleigh, Hampshire. Usual residents include
Florence Craye and
Edwin Craye.
In
Joy in the
Morning (1946), Steeple Bumpleigh and Bumpleigh Hall are
the main theatre of the action.
Chuffnell Hall
Chuffy Chuffnell's house
Chufnell Regis
The nearest village to
Chuffnell
Hall, visited by
Bertie Wooster
for a holiday in
Thank You,
Jeeves. In the
1993
television series
Jeeves and
Wooster, Chufnell Regis is shown to have its own railway
station.
Corven Abbey
See
Dreever Castle below.
Deverill Hall
The country seat of Dame
Daphne
Winkworth, a formidable old harridan, friend of
Bertie Wooster's
Aunt
Agatha. It is a large,
Tudor
manor, located in South
Hampshire, in the
village of
Kings Deverill and is
also home to Dame Daphne's sisters, Emmeline, Charlotte, Myrtle and
Harriet, as well as her pretty daughter Gertrude.
Jeeves's uncle
Charlie
Silversmith is
butler at Deverill. Bertie
Wooster has been to stay there on a couple of occasions, but is not
a particularly welcome guest and is usually sent back to London
prior to the arranged date of departure, due to some silly scrape
he has got himself into.
Ditteredge Hall
Residence of the Glossops.
Dreever Castle
Setting of
much of A Gentleman of
Leisure, Dreever is a large old place in Shropshire
, with heavy grey walls to defend against Welsh
marauders,
but a comfortable interior. It is owned by
Spennie Dreever, but run
by his rich uncle
Sir Thomas
Blunt. One of the oldest and grandest houses in England,
Dreever is famed for an old ghost story, handed down from
generation to generation. There is a picturesque rose-garden, and a
lake with an island, ideal for young lovers.
In
The Gem Collector, an earlier version of the story, the
house is called
Corven Abbey, and owned by former New York
policeman
McEachern.
The Drones Club
A
fictional gentlemen's
club for feckless youth, located in Dover Street
, London
.
Eckleton
A school, setting of the novel
The
Head of Kay's, and several
other
school stories.
The Emsworth Arms
An
inn on the High Street in
Market Blandings, the Emsworth serves fine
ale and makes an ideal meeting-place for
conspirators not wishing to be overheard, as well as providing
accommodation for anyone wishing to be near
Blandings Castle but lacking an
invitation.
There is a busy bar downstairs, and a more genteel dining-room on
the first floor, with comfortable armchairs ideal for anyone in
need of a nap. The garden stretches down to the river, with many
shady nooks and summer-house, seemingly ideal for conspirators not
wishing to be overheard and weary minds and bodies needing rest.
The proprietor, G. Ovens, makes excellent home-brewed
ale.
Heath House
Home of
Ukridge's Aunt
Julia, Heath House is a large mansion near Wimbledon
Common
, set back from the road in the seclusion of
spacious grounds. Ukridge lives there from time to time, in
between being thrown out by his aunt for his mesdeeds. The grounds
are in much demand for dancing societies and charitable fetes.
Among the staff of the house have been, at times, the likes of
Oakshott
the
butler, and
"Battling"
Billson, a temporary handyman, and
Jimmy
Corcoran is rarely welcome there.
The house is occasionally called "The Cedars" in later
stories.
Ickenham Hall
The
Hampshire seat of
Frederick Twistleton, Lord Ickenham, where he
lives much of the time, his wife Lady Jane having forbidden him to
visit London lest he wreak his usual havoc.
Polly
Pott gambolled in the grounds as a child; there are too many
statues there.
The Junior Ganymede Club
A
club for
"gentlemen's gentlemen", of which
Jeeves is a
member.
Kings Deverill
The village near
Deverill Hall.
Malvern House Preparatory School
The preparatory school where
Bertie
Wooster,
Gussie Fink-Nottle,
and
Kipper Herring studied in their
earlier years. During their education, it was presided over by the
Rev.
Aubrey Upjohn.
The Mammoth Publishing Company
Owned and
run by Lord
Tilbury, the Mammoth is based at Tilbury House, Tilbury Street
(off Fleet
Street
). The company's output is large and varied,
from the
gossipy Society Spice to
the children's
Tiny Tots, and includes newspapers such as
the
Daily Record,
magazines like
Home Gossip, and book imprints like the
British Pluck
Library, home to the adventures of
Gridley Quayle,
Investigator.
Employees at various times include Pyke's timid son
Roderick,
briefly editor of
Society Spice,
Percy Pilbeam, Roderick's capable
assistant who later takes over as editor,
Ashe
Marson, the writer of the
Gridley Quayle stories,
Joan
Valentine, sometime editress of
Home Gossip, and
Sam
Shotter, who worked for his neighbour
Mr Wrenn,
editor of
Pyke's Home Companion.
Monty Bodkin is deputy-editor of
Tiny
Tots at the start of
Heavy Weather, thanks to his
uncle
Sir Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe meeting with Tilbury at a public dinner;
Archie
Gilpin was an occasional contributor.
Lavender
Briggs and
Millicent
Rigby have both acted as Tilbury's secretary.
Market Blandings
The
nearest town to Blandings Castle,
site of the Emsworth Arms and a host
of other hostelries (such as the Beetle and
Wedge, the Blue Boar, the Blue Cow, the
Blue Dragon, the Cow and Grasshopper, the
Goat and Feathers, the Goose and Gander, the
Jolly Cricketers, the Stitch in Time, the
Wheatsheaf, and the Waggoner's Rest), as well as
a useful railway station, from where a fast train can get you to
Paddington
in under four hours.
A sleepy old place, Market Blandings is one of England's most
picturesque towns, and has an air of having been the same for
centuries; the lichened church has a four-square tower, the shops
red roofs, and the second floors of the inns bulge comfortably
outward. The most modern thing there is the
moving-picture house, which calls itself an
"Electric Theatre", is covered in ivy and features stone
gables; the only other up-to-date location is the shop
of Jno. Banks, hairdresser. The only
taxi
cab in town is the station taxi, driven by Mr
Jno.
Robinson;
the
chemist's is run by a Mr
Bulstrode.
Market Snodsbury
A town, close to
Brinkley Court. It
is at the Market Snodsbury Grammar School that, in
Right Ho, Jeeves,
Gussie Fink-Nottle gives his immortal
drunken prize-giving speech.
Marling Hall
A house in the neighbourhood of
Blandings Castle, Marling is the home of
Colonel
Fanshawe, his wife and their attractive daughter
Valerie.
The butler there is a friend of
Beach, and the two of them occasionally
share a glass or two in the evenings. The house's coal cellar has,
on at least one occasion, served as a makeshift prison.
Marvis Bay
A delightful coastal
resort, with smooth firm
sands and a long
pier at the northern end of
the beach, which provides excellent
fishing.
The Beach View Hotel lies just by the beach, and the Beach Theatre
is not far away. Marvis is the peaceful seaside spot
par
excellence, the ideal place for a quiet week for those not up
to the excitements of
Roville
The beach is the main setting for the events of "
Deep Waters" and "
Fixing it for Freddie", while Marvis
Bay
Golf and Country Club has a charming
links and a comfortable
clubhouse, from where the club's
Oldest Member dispenses his wisdom in the form
of his inexhaustible
golf
stories.
Marvis Bay
is variously reported to lie in Dorsetshire
("Fixing it for Freddie") and Cornwall
(Uneasy
Money).
Matchingham Hall
Seat of Sir
Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe, the hall neighbours
Blandings Castle and lies near the village
of
Much Matchingham. In its
grounds resides the "
Pride
of Matchingham", Sir Gregory's pig and rival to
Lord Emsworth's mighty
Empress of Blandings, and later the
"
Queen
of Matchingham", replacement for the Pride. The telephone
number there is Matchingham 8-3.
Mervo
A small
Mediterranean
island, the smallest independent state in the
world, smaller even than Monaco
. It
is a sleepy little place, with an army of one hundred and fifteen,
a small harbour, a small town and a few scattered fishing hamlets.
The last prince, Charles, was driven out in 1886, when the place
became a republic, but when Mervo is purchased by
Benjamin
Scobell in order to build a casino and resort, in
The Prince and Betty,
John Maude is
revealed to be heir to the princedom.
Much Matchingham
The village adjacent to
Matchingham
Hall.
"Beefy"
Bingham inhabits the Vicarage there, the living being in the
grant of
Lord Emsworth, and his dog
Bottles is well-known from the
Blue Boar on the High
Street to the distant
Cow and Caterpillar on the
Shrewsbury Road.
The New Asiatic Bank
An austere and serious organisation, the New Asiatic is run by
John
Bickersdyke. Former employees include
Mike
Jackson and
Psmith, employed there for a
spell in
Psmith in the
City. It has the atmosphere of a public school, with the
heads of department as autocratic as masters - the Postage Dept. is
run by
Mr
Rossiter, the Cash Dept. by
Mr Waller, and
the Fixed Deposits Department by a Mr Gregory. The London branch is
seen as something of a training ground for new blood - once a
period of probation has been completed, most employees head out
East.
At some point, the bank was successfully robbed of around two
million dollars' worth of transferable bonds, by a man by the name
of
Edward
Finglass, a friend of
Alexander "Chimp"
Twist and
Thomas "Soapy"
Molloy; though Finglass escaped, his haul was eventually
recovered, thanks to
Sam Shotter, in
Sam the Sudden.
The bank is perhaps inspired by the
Hong Kong and
Shanghai Bank, where Wodehouse himself worked for a time before
his writing career took off, and is mentioned in passing in many
other stories and novels.
The Pelican Club
A riotous
gentlemen's
club back in the
nineties, the Pelican was
that happy era's equivalent to the
Drones.
Galahad
Threepwood and
Uncle Fred were both
prominent and popular members; others include "Dogface" Weeks,
champion liar, and Galahad's friends
"Plug" Basham and
"Puffy"
Benger. The club was a real gentlemen's club of the era from
1887-1892.
Roville-Sur-Mer
A wild and
exciting resort in the South of France
.
Setting
of the likes of The
Adventures of Sally and French Leave; the name, however,
is reminiscent of Deauville
and Boulogne-sur-Mer
, on the Channel.
St. Austin's
A school, setting of several early shorts (many of them collected
in
Tales of St.
Austin's), as well as Wodehouse's first published novel
The Pothunters. In the
Jeeves short story
The Ordeal of Young Tuppy, it
is revealed that
Tuppy Glossop is an
Old Austinian.
Rowcester Abbey
A near-derelict abbey located in Southmoltonshire, and the setting
for the novel
Ring for
Jeeves. The abbey dates as far back as the
Renaissance, and is alleged to be haunted, a
fact that attracts Mrs. Spottsworth, a self-taught psychic, to buy
the abbey from impoverished aristocrat Bill Belfry, 9th Earl of
Rowcester.
Sanstead House
Sanstead is a school, setting for much of the action in
The Little Nugget. An
imposing Georgian building in around of land, Sanstead was formerly
the private home of a family called Boone, but when the family's
fortunes declined and the house became too large and expensive to
maintain, one Colonel Boone keenly leased the place out as a
school.
The place is perfect for the purpose, with ample grounds for
cricket and
football, and plenty of rooms of various
sizes ideal for classrooms and dormitories. Its stables, with their
thick walls and iron-barred windows, have been put to use as a
gymnasium, carpenter's shop and general storage area, but also make
a handy fortress in event of a siege. It is two miles (3 km)
from the village, where the principal watering-hole is the
Feathers, the barmaid of which, a Miss Benjafield, is a
stately type who disapproves of Americans.
Run by the somewhat ineffectual
Arnold Abney,
Sanstead's staff includes the gloomy teacher
Mr Glossop,
White the
smooth mannered butler, and Mrs Attwell the Matron, as well as a
cook, an odd-job-man, two housemaids, a scullery-maid and a
parlour-maid, before it is enhanced by the arrival of
Peter Burns.
The boys, who number some twenty-four in total, include
Augustus
Beckford, are augmented by the Nugget himself,
Ogden Ford, who
brings all manner of drama and bad behaviour to the school.
Sedleigh
A very minor school, which achieves some
cricketing success thanks to the arrival of
Mike Jackson and
Psmith, in
Mike and Psmith. Set in pretty
countryside, the school has some two hundred boys. The houses, a
row of three, lie across the cricket field from the main school;
Outwood's, of
which Mike and Psmith become members, is the middle one.
The school has a thriving
archaeological
society, thanks to Outwood, and also a fire brigade, run by his
colleague
Downing but
treated as an excuse to mess around by the boys. The drainpipes are
sturdy, and there is a fire bell, in an archway near the school,
which proves useful to Mike on one occasion; when it is rung, the
boys get to flee the building via canvas chutes.
The Senior Conservative Club
A staid and old-fashioned
gentlemen's club, The Senior
Conservative is a calm and quiet place with discrete staff and
excellent dining. Opposite the wide windows of the lower
smoking-room is an excellent
flower shop,
and there is a
Turkish bath not
twenty-five yards from the doors, in Cumberland Street.
Its
numbers (increasing from three thousand, seven hundred and eighteen
at the time of Psmith in the
City to six thousand, one hundred and eleven by the time
of Leave it to Psmith)
are all respectable, mostly bald men, who look like they could be
politicians or important figures in the City
; they
include Lord Emsworth, who joined as a
country member in 1888, and Psmith, put up
for the club by his father.
Steeple Bumpleigh
Steeple Bumpleigh is a
fictional
location, being a small village in rural Hampshire where
Bertie Wooster's
Uncle Percy Craye, Lord Worplesdon, and
Aunt Agatha reside at
Bumpleigh Hall. It is set in fields and
woods, nearby the market town of East Wibley. Lord Worplesdon is
also the local Judge of Peace.
In
Joy in the
Morning (1946), Steeple Bumpleigh and Bumpleigh Hall are
the main theatre of the action.
Tilbury House
The home
of the Mammoth
Publishing Company lies on Tilbury Lane near Fleet Street
, a narrow lane that smells somewhat of
cabbage. The Mammoth's premises spill out from the main HQ
at Tilbury House to various other buildings in the street. For a
time, opposite Tilbury House on the fourth floor are the offices of
J. Sheringham Adair, Detective, also known as
Alexander "Chimp"
Twist.
Totleigh Towers
Totleigh Towers is the seat of widower Sir
Watkyn Bassett and his daughter
Madeline Bassett.
Twing Hall
The home of the
Wickhammersleys.
Valley Fields
Valley Fields is one of London's quiet, leafy suburbs, in the
SE21 postal district. The setting of
much of
Sam the Sudden, it
is home to
Matthew
Wrenn, whose friend
Mr Cornelius
is the local estate agent and historian; he has many a tale to tell
of the suburb, the most exciting being that of
Edward "Finky"
Finglass, the notorious bank robber, who lived for a time in
the house later inhabited by
Sam
Shotter.
In
Uncle Fred in the
Springtime, we learn that part of the suburb was formed
from the old estate of
Lord Ickenham's
Uncle Willoughby, known as Mitching Hill, setting of the drama
related in "
Uncle Fred Flits
By". It is also home to
Maudie,
niece of
Blandings Castle butler
Beach.
The
suburb reappears in many non-series novels, and is apparently based
on the real London suburb of West Dulwich
, where Wodehouse lived in his youth while attending
Dulwich
College
.
Wrykyn
A minor
public
school with a strong
cricketing
tradition, Wrykyn is most closely associated with
Mike Jackson, hero of
Mike at Wrykyn. It also features in the
earlier school novels
The Gold
Bat and
The White
Feather, as well as a number of early
school
shorts.
The school is an imposing place, especially to new boys; the
grounds are in the form of a series of terraces cut from a hill,
with the school at the top, training grounds on the next step and
on the next the cricket field, from the pavilion of which one can
see three counties. The houses are run by the likes of
Wain, Donaldson and
Seymour, and the school's reputation for cricket is fearsome. The
public schools "Geddington" and "Ripton" are sporting rivals.
Many characters in later works are old boys, including
Ukridge, his friends
Jimmy
Corcoran,
George
Tupper, and
"Looney"
Coote, as well as
Sam "The Sudden"
Shotter and his friend
Willoughby
Braddock.