Brakeshire - Where On Earth…?

Map of Brakeshire

Where is Brakeshire?

Somewhere in England. Not near the shore. Not southern. Not northern. It’s not real, in case you were wondering.

A few years ago, I asked an independent book shop if they’d consider stocking my novels. They weren’t interested, but kindly suggested I approach shops located in the region my books are set.

“It’s a fictional county called Brakeshire,” I pointed out.

“Yes, that’s where you’d be better asking,” came the reply.

Why make up a place at all, when the world is already full of places?

I wanted to define my own terrain and geography. After all, some of my favourite writers have done so - Tolkien, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot. Not that I’m in their league, I hasten to add!

Brake is a synonym of Bracken. It’s not a typo. Being a stickler for correct detail, I research weather conditions in places I set a scene on the dates I specify. It was unseasonably cold and very windy in North Wales in April, 2006 (as written in ‘Single Minded’, for example). It was. Look it up!

However, Brakeshire offers me scope, and freedom to manufacture conditions as it suits. It could have been snowing there when it didn’t anywhere else. I don’t have to be historically correct. It’s a blank canvas. Or it was, before I scribbled all over it.

Are the places based on anywhere?

Not really. The place names are geographically informed. A Basset is a low-lying rocky outcrop; squat and bench-like. Think Basset Hound shape. Tredmouth, whilst not coastal, is the site of the mouth of the river Tred. A bridge and a ford cater for the river Jem in Jemford Bridge. Millby is the town by the mill. I’d recently re-read ‘The Mill On The Floss’ when I dreamt it up. And the mill itself is situated where two rivers merge in the middle of the county, and the water is at its most powerful and useful. And so on.

I’ve always loved that; the fact that place names aren’t random. They’re informed by something. There’s usually a perfectly logical reason.

And there’s a history to it all?

Yes! Communication lines are vital. The rivers, canals, railway, roads - they all evolved in line with history and industrial necessity. Thus, they have a story to tell.

The paths they take are the most logical and navigable. The towns, and sole city in the county, developed as a result.

Somewhere in my books, the tale of it is told. Bit by bit, though, for anyone who cares to piece it together!

Did you start with a map?

Ah, no. The map itself… I’m no cartographer, but I sketched it out. That was when I wrote ‘Across The Humpty Dumpty Field’. So, late-2017, early-2018. Prior to then, I carried it around in my head, the points and pathways.

Taking the county (Stafford, VA), I was in at that time, I roughly traced it, inverted it, rotated it 90 degrees a few times, and began adding place names and connections. My wife then took the mess I’d created, made sense of it all, and drew the early map. It was on the wall by my desk for seven years. As I added to it, so it began getting messy again. A friend, Matt Armstrong, offered to ‘tidy it up a bit’. Which he did splendidly!

I’m very lucky to know people who can correct my messes. It’ll evolve, though. Things always do. There are plans, I hear, for the marshes in south Brakeshire to be drained and developed. The old prison will be knocked down. Change is inevitable. It’s a dynamic place, after all.

It’s my domain. New people move in. Others leave and go elsewhere. That’s what Brakeshire folk call outsiders - Elsewheres.

Other places occur frequently in your novels, don’t they? Tinbury Head, for example?

They do! Brakeshire folk holiday at the seaside in Tinbury Head, the nearest and simplest way to reach the coast. There’s a direct train out of Tredmouth. I’m not sure where it is. Dorset, perhaps. The south coast, I always like to imagine. Perhaps the south coast of Wales. It’s not important. It’s just somewhere people go for their holidays.

It all feels very real. I feel as though I know it, and would like to visit Brakeshire.

Thank you. Then I must have done a decent job of it! The geography reoccurs across my novels. Place names become familiar, I think. As do the landmarks in and around them. The big old oak tree on the hill outside Jemford Bridge, for example. The slate quarry near Norton Basset.

And, of course, so do the people.

Sometimes individuals, but the populace, moreover. You get a feel for them. Those connections - geographical or human - are one of my favourite things when I write my stories. I know from feedback that readers love them, too. Those ‘in the know’, who inwardly smile at the references only a regular can spot. It’s familiar and comfortable.

That’s why Brakeshire exists. It’s my own little world, and I can do what I want there.