The Castle Museum, which is open to the public (daily from ten until four, admission free), houses an interesting collection of double action seed drills, early Humdrummer’s single-tine fork dibbers and the complete musical vegetable collection of Aloysius Musk.
The castle gardens have a good display of herbaceous plants and ornamental cabbage. The maze has been closed to the public after complaints that starving visitors trapped inside had to be fed by throwing sandwiches and bits of cake to them from the battlements. It was reported that a family of dwarfs even resorted to tunnelling to make their escape. The maze was planted to a plan provided by that ‘master’ of landscaping, B. S. Johnson. This plan, preserved in the museum, was drawn on a piece of paper that had also been used to sketch a design for a cruet. Further confusion was added by the many circular coffee stains and part of a note from Mrs J. to her chambermaid.
Sto Lat is well known for its community of skilled blacksmiths and metalworkers who historically used the ore found in the rock that the city is built on. (Legends tell that this isolated crag was carried here from the Ramtops in the days of the Ice Giants.) The local seams were soon worked out and, until the arrival of the railway, iron ore, along with coal, copper and tin, was brought in by mule-trains in the summer and troll-drawn sleds in the winter. The metalworking industry is now revitalized, although many of the younger craftsmen have migrated to Swine Town where the wages are higher and the only cabbage they see is on a plate. With gravy.
Sto Lat’s prestigious Military Academy, located just outside the city walls, still enrols the younger sons of the Sto Plains gentry, although in these peaceful times a career in the Royal Sto Plains Riflers is no longer the reliable source of income, enemy boots and other such spoils of war as it once was.
The cadets spend as many hours learning the intricacies of etiquette as they do military strategy. One may often spy a hapless cadet or two outside, julienning potatoes, polishing oyster forks or performing endless Borogravian Waltz drills as punishment for some infraction.
TRAVELLING THE FEW miles to Swine Town one can usually hear it before one sees it. The sound of mighty hammer presses permeates not just the town but the countryside for some way out, rattling farmhouse windows and causing the ground to tremble. The sound could be mistaken for thunder were it not so regular. The sky above is lit by the red glow of the forges like some crucible of the gods and everything is covered in a fine black dust. There are vast sheds where serious and clever men in oil-stained dungarees create from steel sheet and bar the finely engineered steam machines that power our railway. Swine Town is a wonder of our age and its whole population is directed towards that one purpose.
•SWINE TOWN•
POPULATION: 690
CLACKS TERMINAL
POST OFFICE
ACCOMMODATION: The Forge Inn has rooms. As the town expands more public houses, canteens and dormitories are opening up to cater for the vast army of workers. Visitors normally choose to stay in Sto Lat.
BANK: Royal Ankh-Morpork Bank.
THE STATION IN Swine Town is functional, surrounded by extensive shunting yards where a continuous stream of trucks deliver iron ore and coal from the quay at Colyford a few miles upriver. Swine Town is a place of pilgrimage for locomotive enthusiasts, who spend their days hanging around writing down engine numbers and other details in little notebooks. Mr Simnel’s Aunt Maudie, who runs Simnel’s Café just beside the station, also supplies these young men, and it is invariably young men, with that item of hooded waterproof clothing now becoming known as the Anorankh.
•COLYFORD•
POPULATION: 306
CLACKS TERMINAL
POST OFFICE: Counter in General Store.
ACCOMMODATION: The Waterman’s
Inn, The Cellar Inn.
MARKET DAY: Saturday.
Riverboat Festival in May: a weekend of fun, frolics and sociable crochet, culminating in a parade of decorated boats.
THIS SMALL SETTLEMENT on the banks of the River Ankh was once a quiet and somewhat backward town whose river trade comprised mainly wool and cheese coming downriver from Lancre. There used to be a small fish-processing plant where the Ankh green-gilled chub was transformed into something almost edible in a jar. This has recently closed and Colyford is now a bustling river port where the raw materials for building the railway are fed at great speed by the crowds of dockmen from barges on to railway trucks and thence to the forges of Swine Town. There is little else to see but the smell of the town is less offensive than it was and locals can now afford to make their sandwiches with named meat.
THE JOURNEY HUBWARDS takes us next to the hamlet of Hapley. In Spune there are frequent delays on this line caused by leaves shed by bolting cabbages. Unlike the Blue Bolter, which runs away when startled, the Burley Bolter is classed as an aggressive brassica and will pounce upon a moving object. Burly Bolters are not robust enough to damage engines, but cleaners report that removing the debris from the wheels is a greasy and smelly job. I was told that the AM&SPHR have requested that farmers use the land abutting the railway solely for growing potatoes or some other passive vegetable.
•HAPLEY•
POPULATION: 62 1/2
CLACKS TERMINAL: Nearest is ten miles away at Colyford.
POST OFFICE: Counter in Scrimp’s General Store.
ACCOMMODATION: The Rumptuous Arms.
MARKET DAY: Friday.
KEN DITCH, THE founder of the Very Plain Potato church, was born in Hapley and there is still a small shrine in the front room of his parents’ terraced cottage in Beehive Lane. There is a small trade in the sale of sacred relics of the founder; these take the shape of wizened and dried-out potatoes that are worn around the neck on baling twine. Some converts have taken to wearing wristbands of the twine alone, like some small scratchy bangle.
Further afield, Rumptuous Hall, a once grand house but now in ruins, was the home of the Rumptuous family.
The unexplained disappearance of the septuagenarian Lord and Lady Rumptuous has never been resolved and their only son, Cuthbert, went missing on an expedition to find the source of the River Z’boozi in Howondaland. Some impression of the former grandeur of the estate may be gained from the famous Remnant painting believed to show the grounds, Still Life with Cabbage, Broccoli both Green and Purple, Sprouts, Kale and Elderly Couple being Attacked by Werewolf.
The journey continues with the never-changing view and ever-pleasant aroma of cabbage fields. Even the unassuming railway stations are built to a common plan, with little to raise the interest of the traveller. It is, however, worth getting off at Little Swelling, the acknowledged centre of the worm-herding tradition. The ancient ways of the worm herder had at one point almost died out but, like many things put aside in the name of progress, their work was much missed and regeneration and breeding programmes are now under way. The station master, who is himself an amateur worm breeder of some renown, is also the curator of the small museum and will open it to visitors for a small remuneration. It boasts a fine collection of herder’s prongs, travelling trowels, scoops and flat pans as well as the worm-skin tunic and socks worn by fabled worm herder Thaddeus Spelt.
LITTLE
•SWELLING•
POPULATION: 148
CLACKS TERMINAL: at the Worm Herder’s Arms.
ACCOMMODATION: The Worm Herder’s Arms.
Annual Worm Races are held in the second week of April on a measured section of platform 1.
The back room of The Worm Herder’s Arms is the meeting place for the Ancient and Alluvial Lodge of the Fraternal Herders Association. The Association offers the use of its secure worm pens and grading riddles free of charge to members.
THERE IS AN unusual railway bridge just outside the village. It was constructed to cross King Paragore’s Way or, in local parlance, Old Limmer’s Gap, an ancient worm-herder’s pathway protected not just by custom but by a royal decree. This bridge is unique in that it stands only two foot off the ground, and is maintained by
a family of goblins who needless to say have taken full advantage of the transitory resource that passes beneath them. There is a small shrine to Aniger built into the stone pavement of the bridge. Once a year the low bas relief of a group of flattened animals is scrubbed clean and a small wreath laid.
The post office sells postcards of this curious monument along with a pamphlet containing prayers to Aniger and some tasty recipes for track kill.
•HUDDLE•
(Change here for Sto Kerrig)
POPULATION: 134
CLACKS TERMINAL: at Huddle Coat Works, New Sheds.
POST OFFICE: Counter at Huddle General Stores.
ACCOMMODATION: The Huddle Inn.
MARKET DAY: Alternate Thursdays. Bud-Harvest Day Fair in February.
THE SETTLEMENT OF Huddle has grown up around the Huddle Inn, an amalgam of three ancient buildings leaning together like old drunkards at closing time. It was until recently the main coaching inn on the road between Sto Kerrig and Big Cabbage.
A viable textile industry has developed here based on the locally grown Cotton-bud Sprout. Skilled weavers make practical waxed jackets, which are both waterproof and mothproof though sadly prone to caterpillar damage.
•STO KERRIG•
POPULATION: 4,400
CLACKS TERMINAL
POST OFFICE in the Market Square.
ACCOMMODATION: The Crown and Railway Hotel, Coach and Horses Inn.
BANK: The Sto Kerrig Mutual.
MARKET DAYS: Wednesday and Saturday.
Kettle and Kale Games in June, Soul Cake Fair in Sektober, Hog-Ringers Fair in October.
STO KERRIG IS an attractive city located on the River Sour, a tributary of the Ankh, which rises in Sourhead Springs on the borders of Skund and winds its way between banks of willow trees across the plains, to join the Ankh near Colyford.
Remnant Hall, birthplace of the famous artist Josiah Remnant, is now a gallery. The Remnant Foundation offers a small bursary to one student a year, chosen by Miss Constance Remnant, the last surviving and somewhat eccentric relative of the great man. The lucky claimant is expected to work in the distinctive Remnant style but utilizing only what can be found in Miss Remnant’s compost heap and applying the same to the canvas with cabbage stalks.
Sto Kerrig is the centre of a papermaking industry based on cabbages; artisan craftsmen produce fine watercolour paper from the white-leaved Bockingfield cabbage; and a special gummed paper – the gum impregnated with broccoli juice – is supplied to the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, who use this stock for their popular 50p Sto Plains Cabbage Industry stamp, designed to appeal to the homesick immigrant’s nostalgie de la chou.
Just outside the city there is an imposing monument commemorating the fallen of the Great Battle of Sto Kerrig in 1642. The story goes that King Olerve the Unready of Sto Lat was eating a bowl of porridge when he was told of yet another encroachment on to his land by an army from Ankh-Morpork. In a fit of rage he rushed to battle shouting for his unwilling and exhausted infantry to follow him. The large equestrian sculpture depicts a horseman armed only with a spoon and lists the names of each combatant who fell in battle. It goes on to explain that after a short rest they all got up and went home.
HIGH
•MOULDERING•
POPULATION: 240
CLACKS TERMINAL
ACCOMMODATION: The Hotel Continental.
MARKET DAY: Wednesday.
Annual Well Undressing in April, when small children and old people are unwrapped from winter’s protective layer of goose grease and brown paper prior to a good scrubbing in the beneficial spring.
HIGH MOULDERING BOASTS wonderful salt-water baths from a pleasantly warm spring, and the owner and his wife give hygienic massages to those who would like to enjoy the benefit. Ladies and gentlemen separately, of course; there is nothing here that could be considered insalubrious or that would shock the most delicate of sensibilities.
People wishing to tour the area may be interested in the Sacred Glade of Shock Knee, which deserves to be noticed for its amazing echoes. A short distance away is a shrine to Anoia, patron goddess for people who have difficulty with things stuck in their drawers.
•CRANBURY•
(Change here for Sto Helit)
POPULATION: 420
CLACKS TERMINAL
ACCOMMODATION: The Plain View Hotel.
MARKET DAY: Friday.
Prick Out Monday in March (the day when cabbage seedlings are thinned out) ends in a procession of the maidens of the town dressed entirely in last year’s cabbage leaves. The young men of the town meanwhile play merry japes secreting slugs among their foliage.
CRANBURY, ONCE A staging post at the crossroads between the Sto Lat–Big Cabbage and Sto Kerrig–Sto Helit highways, is now a busy station at the junction of two railway lines. Traditionally it was the centre of a home-based cabbage-bottling business; the industrious housewives of the town developed their own recipe to preserve the bright green colour of the fresh vegetable. Cranbury Cabbage was transported by cart as far as Ankh-Morpork and even Ohulan Cutash where it was regarded as a great delicacy. Since the coming of the railway the process has been industrialized and tin cans, produced in Swine Town, arrive ready to be filled and sealed.
En route to Sto Helit, the train passes close to Smirk Hall, home to a rather unpleasant family who once owned vast tracts of land in this area. The dark turrets and ominous buttresses of the great house are visible from the train and there, in forbidding shadows, perhaps lurks the last club-footed member of this clan. They made their money, it is said, by theft and ransom and kept it by only marrying cousins. They lost it on strong drink, cards and snail racing.
•STO HELIT•
POPULATION: 3,500
CLACKS TERMINAL
POST OFFICE
ACCOMMODATION: The Grand Hotel, The Castle Arms.
BANK: Sto Plains Cabbage Growers’.
MARKET DAY: Octeday.
Nip Day, third Friday in August; Soul Cake Duck Cavalcade with illuminated floats and grand costumes in Sektober.
STO HELIT EMERGES from the evening gloom, its tall and rather forbidding castle dominating the skyline. The city has long outgrown the corsetry of its ancient walls and spreads itself out along fine avenues with shops and cafés. It enjoys something of a provincial reputation for ‘class’ and genteel living. The principal attraction is the ancient castle; some rooms are open for public viewing for a small consideration. The Long Gallery holds some fine landscape paintings in the Brindisian style as well as portraits of the Sto Helit ducal family. Lady travellers might wish to visit Bilberry’s Emporium, a most fashionable outfitters with a long tradition of dressing royal families. Their lace-makers and seamstresses created a delightful wedding dress for Queen Magrat of Lancre.
•GREAT SLACK•
POPULATION: 43
CLACKS TERMINAL
POST OFFICE: counter in Bitlidder’s General Store
MARKET DAY: Tuesday.
The Ember String Fair includes a tug of war, and children’s knotting games. The fair is regarded as a success if all the children are cut free before dusk.
A SMALL HAMLET that tries hard to be bigger, its only interesting feature being a monument to Antipater Slack, grower of the first self-protecting cabbage. This was the Slack Snapper, which devoured all insects that came within reach, thus precluding any possibility of pollination. Perceiving it was in danger of dying out, Antipater worked the field with a small camel-hair paintbrush to do the job himself. Neighbours were later able to trace his passage by those plants that successfully went to seed and his end by the remnants of his clothing and one rubber boot.
The modern descendants of Antipater’s plants, now somewhat pacified, yield leaves so strong their fibres can be twisted into robust twine. Great Slack twine is much favoured by farmers and stockmen and is the best cash crop this community has ever had. The sixty-foot-long twine walk may be worth a visit if it’s raining.
Big Cabbage’
s Big Cabbage is visible from several miles away, rising above the flat fields of brassica that surround it like an enormous prize horticultural specimen. From a distance it looks remarkably realistic, but as the train approaches it is possible to see a large door in what is a crude and badly painted concrete structure. The new station is, in contrast, very smart, the woodwork and benches finished in a bright green paint and the station sign decorated with every possible species of brassica. It is a short walk from the station to the amusement park and a regular coach service takes visitors to the modern agricultural centre.
•BIG CABBAGE•
POPULATION: 830
CLACKS TERMINAL
POST OFFICE
ACCOMMODATION: The Green Crown, The Railway Hotel, Furby’s Family Hotel and Camp Site.
BANK: Bank of Big Cabbage, Sto Lat.
BRASSICA MARKET: daily.
The Grand Cabbage and Sprout Fair, 1st–3rd Sektober, includes finals of the Sto Plains Cabbage Queen competition; cabbage futures bought and sold. The Big Cabbage Carnival of Kale takes place on 5th Ember.
Big Cabbage, the green heart of the Sto Plains, is a centre of horticultural excellence as well as providing a fun day out for farming families.
BIG CABBAGE IS totally dedicated to the brassica in all its wonderful manifestations. Over the years it has developed from the original Cabbage Growers’ Association offices and model farm to become the world centre for training as well as research and development and is, in many ways, a foliate university.
It holds the archive seed collection for not just the Sto Plains, but places as far flung as Lancre and Genua, and there are now ‘state of the art’ holding pens and grading systems for worms. The Department for Biological Pest Control recently released the results of a landmark investigation into the decline in insect infestations on land near to clacks terminals, concluding that this was not, as first thought, the effect of strange rays emanating from the machinery, but the simple result of the many goblins who are now so efficiently employed in operating the system augmenting their diet.