P. G. Wodehouse locations

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 (or Anglers') Rest is the public house frequented by irrepressible raconteur Mr Mulliner.

Actually, P. G. Wodehouse gives us few details about this public house. At the beginning of each short story of the Mulliner’s collection, we find Mr Mulliner sipping his hot Scotch and Lemon in the bar-parlour of the establishment, while his pub companions are drinking their own beverages. In most stories, a conversation between these companions induces Mr Mulliner to a recollection of a similar event introducing some new members of the very large Mulliner family. We then leave the pub to enter into the narrator’s world.

We know that the popular landlord of the place is named Ernest Biggs (The Juice of an Orange), and that his very amiable barmaid is named Miss Postlethwaite. Even though she appears in most of the stories, she is never given a first name, but we do know that she is very fond of motion pictures, and of romance novelettes. Every Sunday afternoon, she retires to her room with a box of caramels and a novel from the circulating library, and on the following night, she places the results of her literary researches in front of the habitués of the Angler’s Rest and invites their judgment (The Castaways).

The Angler’s Rest happens to take residents for longer stay: In Unpleasantness at Budleigh Court, a poet is spending the summer at the place. We also know that, across the passage, there is a larger room, where they sometimes give smoking-concerts (The Knightly Quest of Mervyn).

The Angler’s Rest seems to be located in a small English town. In this town, we know there is a Bon Ton Drapery Stores in the High Street, whose efficient sales assistant is named Alfred Lukyn (The Story of Cedric). In the same High Street, we find a movie theater named the Bijou Dream (A Slice of Life, The Nodder and The Rise of Minna Nordstrom). The village also contains a resident doctor (The Truth about George), and of course a church (Anselm Gets his Chance), with its inevitable Choral Society (Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo). About a mile or two up the river from the Angler’s Rest, stands an ancient and historic public-school (The Voice from the Past). In the neighbourhood of the town, there seems to be a golf course (Those in Peril on the Tee), and also a racecourse (Gala Night).

Mr Mulliner’s pub companions never have a real name. They are named after the beverage they are drinking. Here is a list of some of these names :

• Gin-and-Ginger-Ale
• Draught Stout
• Small Bass
• Double-Whisky-and-Splash
• Lemon Squash
• Tankard of Ale
• Pint of Stout
• Pint of Bitter
• Pint of Half-and-Half
• Whisky Sour
• Mild and Bitter
• Rum and Milk
• Lemonade and Angustura
• Port from the Wood
• Eggnog

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.

Berkeley Mansions

Bertie Wooster resides at an apartment in Berkeley Mansions, London W1.

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.

Easeby

The Shropshire seat of Bertie Wooster's Uncle Willoughby.

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 misdeeds. 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. A register about the masters of the members has eleven pages on Bertie Wooster.

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 name comes from the real school which P. G. Wodehouse attended from 1891 to 1893.

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 Tilbury'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 editor 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.

Market Snodsbury is also home to an inn called the Bull and Bush, which is, according to Bertie, "Well spoken of in the Automobile Guide", and to which Aubrey Upjohn retired in Jeeves in the Offing, after Aunt Dahlia suggested he leave Brinkley Court.

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. On another occasion, a Mr John Benyon robbed the bank of $100,000, according to a story in The Man with Two Left Feet.

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. It is described in the chapter 4 of Psmith in the City that the London branch of the New Asiatic Bank is situated somewhere around the Mansion House and Queen Victoria St in the City of London.

The Pelican Club

A riotous gentlemen's club back in the 1890s, 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.

It first appeared in two of the short stories collected in the book The Man Upstairs, published in the U.K. in 1914 : Ruth in Exile and The Tuppenny Millionaire.

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 that 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 9 acres (36,000 m²) 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 discreet 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 Justice of the 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 is a setting in many non-series novels, including Ice in the Bedroom, which has a similar plot to that of Sam the Sudden. In the preface to the 1972 edition of Sam the Sudden, Wodehouse wrote: "It was the first thing of mine where the action took place in the delectable suburb of Valley Fields, a thin disguise for the Dulwich where so many of my happiest hours have been spent." In his youth, Wodehouse attended Dulwich College in the London suburb of West Dulwich.

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.