Crundells

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Revision as of 00:57, 30 January 2018 by Wonderful Fanny (talk | contribs) (Added info, rearranged a bit.)
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Otherwise known as Ramkin Hall, this is the seldom-visited country estate of the Ramkin family, located in Quirm on the banks of the River Quire, aka Old Treachery. Sam Vimes speculated that the reason such establishments are known as "stately homes" is that they are about the size of the average small country. Crundells boasts a mile of trout stream and a pub, neither of which hold much interest to Sam save in his contemplating the metaphysics of how the hell anyone can own a mile of river and how do you know if the fish in it are yours, or whether they really belong to the bloated plutocrat with rights to the next mile upstream and have just swum down to willfully make work for lawyers.

The large rambling stately home is profusely ornamented with statuary of naked women, long lengths of gauze and urns optional. Young Sam Vimes, now six, and heir to all he surveys, has unerringly noted the lack of clothing and is by a multiversally binding law of childhood, asking his parents some difficult questions.

According to Snuff, the house is huge, with an indoor smoking room with state-of-the-art ventilation, a vast wine cellar, and an immense bathtub. The grounds include barns, livestock, a pub, a mile of riverbank, a new clacks tower, extensive caves and caverns, etc. Various riverboats like The Wonderful Fanny and The Blackeyed Susan cruise past Crundells and by custom, passing sailors salute the house. The Ramkin estate also includes a private bridge over the Quire.

Crundells also comes with a "big herd of people" who on closer examination turn out to be the resident servants. There is a gatekeeper called Mr Coffin, a gardener who in accordance with the sort of naming you find in Lancre is called William Butler, and a husband-and-wife butler and head housekeeper of slightly sinister mien. Mrs Silver, the head housekeeper, is immediately recognisable as the sort of housekeeper Daphne du Maurier wrote about in Rebecca, although Sybil is no Mrs deWinter and Sam Vimes, in his dreams, would never wish to go back to Crundells...

It also has a Hermit on the grounds, living in a grotto, and has had one for several generations.

And goblins live on the grounds. Or beneath it.