Blackmoor Manor, otherwise known as "Blackmoor Hall" or "Blackmoor House", is a stately home in the countryside a few miles from Moor Allerton, in western England. It is the childhood home of Charli Palmer.
History[]
The name "Blackmoor' is a combination of "Black" and "Moore". A moore is a swampy region, and the name was chosen due to the extremely dark color of the dirt in the area. The land was originally in the ownership of a minor noble, who built a hunting lodge on a hill in the land, close to a river. For decades, the lodge simply sat idly by, mostly unused except for the occasional hunt.
The Bennetts[]
In 1567, they sold their land to Lord Henry Bennett and in 1568, he tore down the old lodge and began to construct a new house, which was much larger. After 11 years, the house was complete. The house originally had a quadrant-layout, with a central hall and four wings moving off of that. Although Lord Bennett died before construction finished, his estranged son Roland moved to the land and became Lord of the hall after his mother's death three years later. He was a reclusive man and stories abounded concerning the man's nighttime activities.
Many feared him and on the nights of the full moon, brought their children indoors and stood watch over their livestock by night with silver bullets. Strange murders occurred but none ever approached Lord Bennett. When he died in 1601, the killings did, as well and memory of the mysterious Roland Bennett simply faded into obscurity. In reality, Roland was a true werewolf, descended from a long line of such creatures. His children all held the gene, as well but none activated it. In fact, it remained dormant for many, many years.
In 1630, Abraham Bennett went off to fight in the war with Switzerland and came back a different man. Most assumed he'd gone mad, but in actuality he had triggered the curse of the Werewolf while overseas after killing so many men. The curse in the family was long-dormant by that time but he was the first to discover it.
It was at this time that the family crest was altered and the motto changed to its current incarnation. He also began to purchase half a dozen large boar-hounds that he kept on the property at all times. Stories of his horrible transformation were handed down afterward but most thought Abraham had simply gone mad.
In 1690, Oliver Bennett commissioned the construction of several large dungeons and cellars with concrete walls and reinforced with iron doors to be built on the edges of the property. Most assumed they would be used as crypts but it was in fact for another reason: to contain the wolf that came out when he transformed for he, too, had triggered his own curse.
In 1770, Lord Walter Bennett III died with no male heirs. The house was left to the husband of his eldest daughter Mary, Lord James Talbot.
The Talbots[]
The house passed through the hands of the Talbot family for many years, and much of the modern changes to the grounds were implemented by the Talbot family, namely the famous wall, the bridge (which shortened the journey one had to take from the road considerably) and the many statues of large wolves and weeping angels around the grounds. Additionally, the cellars were reinforced in the early 19th century, with iron chains added, hanging from the walls. More statues were added to these areas, mostly wolf statues.
In 1854, Lord John Talbot became Lord of Blackmoor Manor (known then as Talbot Hall). He was a handsome, charming man and a bit of a ruffian prone to drinking and consorting with ne'er-do-wells. He would often visit the traveling gypsy camps that came by the village of Blackmoor (what would become Moor Allerton). He married a gypsy woman named Claudia and together they had two children, James and Lawrence.
What John told nobody was that as a young man, in 1852 (only two year prior to become Lord of the Hall) John killed man in self-defense while on a journey in Norway and this triggered his own Werewolf curse. He relished in his transformations and was the cause of his own father's death. John loved his family and was a loving father, until during a transformation accidentally killed his wife in front of his youngest boy, Lawrence. John had Lawrence shipped away to America and quickly became a recluse and was never sighted in town after the death of his wife, which he told everybody was a suicide. As the years went on, John began locking himself in the cellars on his property and he became ever more reclusive and somewhat mad.
In 1891, John accidentally killed his son James on the eve of James' wedding. This summoned the presence of Lawrence, now an actor, who came to investigate the strange happenings. Lawrence also triggered his curse when he killed a gypsy thief in self-defense and this triggered a year-long series of events that culminated in Lawrence and John fighting one another in wolf form (Lawrence was protecting James's widow and Lawrence's new fiancee, Gwen Scrivener, from John) and the house burned down in a huge fire.
Gwen would later give birth to Lawrence's son, but the boy took Gwen's surname. Gwen had the burned remains of the house torn down and rebuilt a new house on the site, the construction of which finished in 1904. She and her son, Adam Scrivener, moved in and Gwen lived there until her death in 1913 when the house passed to Adam and his wife Emily.
The Scriveners[]
Gwen had told Adam everything about what had happened before with Lawrence and Adam triggered his curse intentionally in 1910 at the age of 19. From then, Adam became the head of the Blackmoor Clan and Blackmoor Manor became the focus of the culture.
Each subsequent generation has the eldest child assume leadership of the clan and a common saying is that "there is always a Scrivener in Blackmoor House" and so it must be for the Clan Laws: there must always be a member of the clan residing in Blackmoor Manor and there has for the last century.
Motto[]
"Hominem quoque mundo corde orationibus nocte ac dicit, ut factus lupus cum wolfbane floret et autumnus luna est clara."
This quote has been the motto of the family since the 18th century. It was chosen due to the fact that the house is the head of the Blackmoor Clan of werewolves. While the motto was "lost" in the early 20th century, it is still told verbally to family members when they come of age. It can also be seen carved (albeit faintly) by each door of the three original cellars. It translates in English to:
"Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night, May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright."
Grounds[]
Blackmoor Manor is the hub of a 12,310 acres (50 km-squared) agricultural estate. The house sits on the east bank of the River Derwent. It is set in expensive parkland, and is backed by wooded, rocky hills rising to heather moorland and contains a unique collection of priceless paintings, furniture, Old Master drawings, neoclassical sculptures, books and other antiques. Many of the statues of wolves and angels still stand, much in their original condition. There is even one without a head.
The grounds have a total of four cellars or underground bunkers, three of which were added in 1690 and a fourth in 1939, at the onset of World War II. These cellars are disguised on the outside as family crypts. Nobody ever goes into them, unless it is the night of a full moon and a transformation is to occur. The cells are heavily fortified, and have been reinforced using modern techniques in 1972 and again in 1990. A fully-transformed Werewolf cannot break through the doors and if locked inside, safely keep them away from innocent people.
There is an archery range set up in the back yard, converted from an old horse pen. The area houses six unique bows (two of which are antique longbows) and more than one hundred arrows. Targets are arranged on hay bales braced against the low, cobblestone wall. Gordon had this done mostly for his children and he often went out there with them and shot arrows for an afternoon when he was younger. The range still finds some use by both Charli and Chris, though Charli seems to use it more. The stables that were once there have fallen into disuse and in 2005, they were torn down.
A large pool was once located in the basement but it was drained and filled in with concrete in the 1980's. The basement is now a large storage area that has been semi-converted into a music room for Charli. There is a drum set and a couch down there, as well as a mini-fridge that is never stocked.
Resources[]
The house has, aside from the aforementioned archery range and basement, several secret rooms that hold various equipment, should the house suffer an attack by other lycans, werewolf hunters, vampires or any other similar threat.
One such room--and the largest of them--is located adjacent to the master bedroom. It can be accessed via a panel in the closet. This room has a cot (for sleeping in the event of a long-term siege), steel-reinforced doors, guns, ammunition, several knives (a couple of which are silver), arrows, a few composite bows, a crossbow, a battleaxe, Kevlar body armor and survival gear.
Trivia[]
- Blackmoor Manor has a total of six secret rooms in the house, including the pool bunker.
- The bunker located in the pool of the house can withstand the force of a large-payload bomb and would withstand the house collapsing on itself
- Wolfsbane used to grow wild on the property and the entire area, but it was all destroyed in the late 18th century
- While three different families have been the Lords of the Hall, they have all been within the same general genetic tree