Count's Yardham
The description of Count's Yardham as a town is based on the criteria that it has a Marketplace and a wall. On almost all other criteria, it is just a large village.
Demographics
There are 114 families in the town and surrounding district, the most prominent of which is the Count of Herrir's own household. 13 families are bound the land in the Count's service and 28 are little but labourers. There are the recognised traders (listed below) and the remainder are free agicultural workers (36 families), foresters & huntsmen (10 families) and herders (7 families) of the area.
There are only a few persons who deviate from the commonplace. The Count's Household includes a number of Warriors and Soldiers, and his Forresters and Huntmasters are competent outdoorsmen - Scouts or Rangers. Within the town resides the Count's Engineer (Once said to have taken part in a siege in Arnor) and the Count's Advisor (now aged) who is also a general teacher, medic and vetenarian. Some of the townswomen are experienced midwives and nurses.
The town is occasionally visited by various groups of players, but these are usually required to sleep outside the walls in an itinterant's camp that also houses the general workers that pass through for Harvest, etc. More trusted seasonal or temporary workers will be accomodated in the various bothies, byres and hay-stores.
Government
The town is directly governed by the Count's Family
Language
The town is administered in Common Speech, which is also the local language.
Defences
The Manor House is walled and moated, protecting the South and East of the town. The remainder is surrounded by an earth embankment on which is grown a thick hedge of plashed-thorn.
The Manor's moat is kept flooded by a dam and sluice - the sluice, itself, is protected by a tower in the manor wall
Industry & Trade
Count's Yardham is primarily a farming establishment (The district has 36 farming families, but 6 are resident within the walls), and many of the town's buildings are for the storage of farm equipment and surpluses and the housing of the teams of oxen (and their winter fodder) required to plough the massive field systems.
The many local beehives provide both Honey and Wax for Candles. The presence of the Count's administration and family (in the Manor House) even supports a Wax Chandler within the walls.
The town, and immediate countryside, supports 19 full-time professional businesses (i.e. not primarily landsmen):
- Wax Chandler (mentioned above)
- Two Smiths:
- Cartwright
- Bowyer
- Three Taverns
- The Red Cow (which is cheap),
- The Golden Elf (which is more expensive) and
- The Sword and Chalice (which is "Of dubious reputation, but of good repute")
- Saddlery
- Tapestry Maker
- Two Bakers:
- Residence of the Count's Engineer
- Cabinetmaker
- Animal Trainer
- Residence of Aldwyn, Count's Advisor
- Carpenter
- Two Millers (Outside the walls):
Infrastructure
The Town
There are three main thoroughfares within the town: The Street, Back Lane, and Field Lane. The Street includes the open triangle of the Marketplace.
The District
There are two Water-Mills (both outside the walls) and locals maintain over 20 beehives. There are stands of coppice and timber as well as woodland and the town provides both its own firewood and charcoal.
The Street continues both up-river and down - heading up into the White Mountains to the north-west and to the Lefnui River to the south-east. Field Lane heads out into the town's croplands and slowly divides into lesser tracks before petering out by the river.
Assets
Land
The town lands cover over 6000 acres including 1200 acres of woodland, 44 acres or meadow and 10 acres of vineyard. The enclosed area of the town and manor is nearly 12 acres.
Livestock
Count's Yardham has over one hundred and fifty sheep, and over fifty pigs plus half-a-dozen goats and half-a-dozen milk-cows.
History
Earlier this year, about two-thirds of the families in the town sent representatives who went with the Count to fight for Gondor at the disasterous Battle of Lefbridge. As a result, there are a number of outsiders in the employ of the Count's estate attempting to make up for the absent workers. Many of these were previously unknown to the town and these have been provided with tents because they are not permitted to sleep within the walls in these troubled times.
The town of Count's Yardham has a historic relationship with a nearby group of Dwarves - stonemasons who have built (and maintain) the Manor's walls and have installed foundations for a number of the town's grander buildings. Rumors that they are, again, coming to the town (at the request of the Countess) is greeted by a mix of anticipation and trepidation as employing them will increase the towns strength but tax the town's cash.
Architecture
The architecture of the town is mostly "rustic" having been made from the local materials of earth and timber. There ie some use of stone from the mountains in the town itself (mostly as foundations) - and the manor is both walled in and constructed from dwarf-carved stone.
The town-hedge is plashed thorn and maintained annually and is both proof to large animals and resistant to entry by larger creatures. The gates are wooden and each is protected by a wooden tower. The gate-posts are massive stones of great age.
The Town Plan is a series of circles and arcs in the Dunlending tradition. The Manor House is the key circle, with the South Enclosure as an arc from that - and the North Enclosure as another arc in the opposite direction. Finally, the town wall is a third arc bellying round from the North of the North Enclosure round to the South of the South Enclosure.
Within the town, most of the buildings are Gondorian or Eriadoran in style - square or rectangular. Some outbuildings retain the Dunlending propensity for the roundhouse style.
Geography
The town of Count's Yardham sits on a gravel shelf in the valley of the Herduin stream. This lifts the main inhabited area above the level of the winter inundations and spring floods.
While not, itself, prone to much snow, the town is neat the White Mountains and the flows from those peaks do make for considerable meltwater in spring and a continued water supply even in the warmest/driest summer.
Natural Resources
The town has little in the way of natural resources beside timber and good farmland. The Manor's Moat is stocked as a fishpond.
Threats and Dangers
The town has been forced to set additional patrols due to the appearance of "Unnatural creatures" - it has even hired in extra Scouts and Rangers to help it do so while so many of the inhabitants of the town are away at the war.
- Aiekin's Smithy
- Aldwyn's House
- Animal Trainer's Yard
- Back Lane, Count's Yardham
- Bowyer's Workshop
- Cabinetmaker's Shop
- Candlemaker's Shop
- Carpenter's Shop
- Cartwrights
- Elendur's Farm
- Enginehouse
- Field Gate Smithy
- Field Gate, Count's Yardham
- Field Lane, Count's Yardham
- Golden Elf Tavern
- Goosepond Farm
- Harriet's Pie Shop
- Herman's Bakery
- Lane Cottage
- Manor House, Count's Yardham
- Marketplace, Count's Yardham
- North Gate, Count's Yardham
- Old Mill
- Old Mill Lane, Count's Yardham
- Pale Farm
- Pale Farm Track
- Red Cow Tavern
- Saddlery
- Sluice Lane, Count's Yardham
- Sluice Mill
- South Gate, Count's Yardham
- Statue of King Castamir of Gondor
- Strangers Grove
- Sword and Chalice Tavern
- Tapestry Maker's Workshop
- The Street, Count's Yardham
