Bankside

The ward of Bankside includes the Stockyard so it is perhaps unsurprising that much of the business conducted there is around the meat trade. The ward sits just inside the line of the third set of town walls and is named for the banks of the Taw Rill that it sits along side, rather than the banks of the Durran (which in the days before the redevelopment of The Tanneries and Wharfare it used to run down beside.

Demographics

For the most part Bankside is a solidly working class area or Mor extraction. Few from other parts of the Duchy have set up here though there are a few, notably in the northern part of the ward where there are a number of specialists in animal breeding and medicine and a small school of students of those subjects, attracted by the opportunities of one of the largest livestock markets in northern Tarusia and the nearby availability of samples for study of anatomy and physiology.

Industry & Trade

Trade and industry in Bankside is dominated by the Stockyard with butchery the main trade speciality. The slaughter houses are concentrated in the area immediately south of the market place, with the meat processing and butchery in the southern part of the ward. The skins from the slaughtered beasts move further south for processing in the Tanneries and most of the bones and other byproducts are handled in Tawley. The packing and preservation of meat not for immediate consumption is a combination of slow cooking and sealing in casks filled with our or fat, salting (with salt imported from the salt pits near Highborough or brought up by barge from the coast) and drying, which is often combined with smoking as the Moran climate is not always conducive to drying.

Infrastructure

Bankside, along with Tawley and The Tanneries is among the best served area by the trade sewer, it is also unusually well served by the foul sewer as the market place makes for a significant challenge to the quality of surface water. The market itself is also a major employer within the ward and towards the southern end are a number of meat processing and packaging businesses.

Guilds and Factions

The ward is the base of the towns butchers, though they are not incorporated into a formal guild, as well as the centre of operations of a gang known as the Packers, reputed (if you can find them) to be able to make troublesome individuals disappear at a very reasonable cost.

Type

Ward

Inhabitant Demonym

Bankies, Butchers

Alderman

Arrick Onya Cadman is currently the Alderman of the ward. He has worked is way up from a "stunner" (one who stuns the beasts going to slaughter) to be the owner of one of the largest slaughterhouses in the ward. Although his position no longer requires it he still spends a day a week on the slaughterhouse floor stunning and skinning to ensure he remains in touch not just with the business but maintains personal contact with the animals who make the business. He is a strong believer in the slaughterhouse'e god, to whom he believes he owes his success, and unlike many others in his position he insists on all hands attending the rites of Hearthtime and Evens that top and tail the working day.