The Six Bells takes its inspiration from a tiny shop located in the fictional village of Barrow’s Green– a small civil parish with 640 residents, depending on who is dying and how many babies are being born.

The Nidd River The Village Green The Synogague Raven Hall Cranbrook Manor The Six Bells Sheep's Meadow Snowdrop Cottage The Post Office The Courthouse The Church and The Rectory

Introduction

Welcome to Barrow's Green,
the home of The Six Bells.

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The Nidd River

The Nidd River runs through the town and into neighboring villages and attracts anglers fishing for brown trout. The benches along the river’s edge are a popular place for young couples, not many of which live in Barrow’s Green.

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The Village Green

The town’s common space and host to public celebrations, including the annual fete which features bake sales with homemade cake and jam, carnival games and a dog show. In winter, the green hosts the village Christmas festival and tree lighting.

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The Synogague

The Synagogue in Barrow’s Green fell into disrepair, but was revitalized by Rabbi Haskel Fumkin. It sits next to a small Jewish cemetery, and counts 14 families as members.

Run by
Rabbi Frumkin
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Raven Hall

Cecil Plunkett, the businessman, recently moved to Barrow’s Green and purchased Raven Hall, an 18th Century  The estate features one of the largest art collections in the region, all acquired with the funds from Plunkett’s real estate fortune.

Owned by
Cecil Plunkett
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Cranbrook Manor

The stately home of Lord Henry Ashbourne and his wife, Lady Pamela. The facade of the manor was designed in Jacobian style and features oriel windows and a large Parterre garden. The house was used as a hospital for the wounded during the war.

Owned by
Lord Henry Ashbourne
Lady Pamela
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The Six Bells

The Six Bells is a country shop and inn located in Barrow’s Green stocked with goods and essentials for the home. Trips to the store are a part of each villager’s daily ritual. The Six Bells also functions as a small inn, where visitors to Barrow’s Green can sleep in one of its six rooms, each designed in a different color motif.

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Sheep's Meadow

The meadow is where the village’s sheep roam freely and graze. The land abuts Raven Hall, but always has been unofficially considered common. After his purchase of the Hall, Cecil Plunkett announced plans to raze the land and build a housing development, leading to several raucous town meetings.

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Snowdrop Cottage

Home to Ursula Lumley, Snowdrop is a chocolate box cottage with a garden full of rhododendrons, charmingly low ceilings and floorboards that creak in the night.

Owned by
Ursula Lumley
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The Post Office

The local branch where villagers buy stamps and retrieve parcels. The Post Office was once the spot of a town mystery when dozens of prominent villagers received anonymous poison pen letters filled with incendiary accusations. 

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The Courthouse

The center of law and order in Barrow’s Green. The Courthouse serves as the quarters of the village Magistrate, Sir Frances Clitheroe. There is a gallery where townspeople often watch court proceedings, and a small press box for the Green Evening Chronicle. 

Owned by
Sir Frances Clitheroe
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The Church and The Rectory

St. Mary’s Church dates back to the 16th Century. It features belfry windows, parapets and crested ridge tiles. Local village lore recounts a Vicar from the late 19th Century whose ghost is said to haunt the bell tower.

Run by
Magistrate Clitheroe
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Within the town you will find a manor house, a high street with shops, a meadow where sheeps graze, beehive cottages with thatched roofs, a village green which hosts cricket and yearly fetes. It has a weekly newspaper, The Green Evening Chronicle, and a community of unusual characters with interwoven backstories.

INTRODUCING THE TOWNSPEOPLE OF BARROWS GREEN

Sylvia Dudley Ward is a lady of the press, the editor of the village newspaper, The Green Evening Chronicle. The paper covers local affairs, including the latest bills before the town council, announcements of new stop signs and roads, the sports pages, and a weekly gossip column. Her dedication to covering every new development in the village and the job of funding the paper through local advertisements keeps her from an active social life. She has received and declined several overtures from the married Lord Henry Ashborne.

MEET

Sylvia Dudley Ward
lady of the press

Ursula Lumley, known as the town gossip, resides in Snowdrop Cottage. A hearty spinster with iron gray hair, Lumley serves in a number of official roles in the village, including judging the annual regional garden competition. She writes a gossip column for The Green Evening Chronicle under the pen name of Cecilia P. Bingham. Her dinner parties are a village tradition that everyone attends reluctantly.

MEET

Ursula Lumley
THE TOWN GOSSIP

Ms. Swinborne is a well-known mystery writer who resides in Barrow’s Green and sets many of her books there. She is a keen observer of the villagers and their habits, and can often be seen discreetly taking notes when out in public or in social settings. She spends hours a week responding to fan mail, and often thinks tourists are asking for her autograph when they’re really just asking for directions. There’s talk in the village of her past, specifically of a husband who disappeared mysteriously.

MEET

Harriet Swinborne
THE MYSTERY WRITER

Cecil Plunkett is businessman and industrialist who makes his home in Barrow’s Green. His fortune comes from a major shipbuilding firm located on The River Brigg, but his newest endeavor is a real estate firm known for building developments throughout rural counties. Plunkett’s next plan is a 500 acre development with over 80 homes of a modern design that will require the bulldozing of the Barrow’s Green sheep meadow. The plan is meeting significant community pushback, and making Plunkett unpopular in the village.

MEET

Cecil PlunketT
THE BUSINESSMAN

Son of the 11th Duke of Yarm, Lord Ashborne is member of a peerage family and a former Lieutenant Colonel in the National Expeditionary Force. He spends much of his time focused on the gardens of Cranbrook House, which are opened to the public to defray the costs of upkeep. Despite his stiff military mustache, he is fond of puns and has a weakness for sweets. While married for decades to Lady Pamela Ashborne, he is secretly in love with the young newspaper editor Sylvia Dudley Ward.

MEET

Lord Henry Ashborne
The Lord

Lady Ashborne is the wealthy wife of Lord Ashbourne who resides with him at Cranbrook House. She is President of the Ladies Association of Barrow’s Green where she often butts heads with Ursula Lumley over the theme of the annual orphanage charity auction. Lady Ashborne’s dinner parties are elaborate and showcase her extensive collection of hand painted porcelain.

MEET

Lady Pamela Ashborne
THE LADY

Ms. Blackwood is a parlour maid at Cranbrook House. She works alongside a large staff that includes valets, footmen, cooks, stablehands and gardeners. The household staff are channels for gossip inside the manor and out, and often submit anonymously to the columnist Cecilia P. Bingham. An orphan, Ms. Blackwood has been on a life-long quest to find her birth mother and father, both of whom she suspects are villagers in Barrow’s Green.

MEET

Amalia Blackwood
The Parlor Maid

Sir Frances Clitheroe is the village magistrate, a judge who is responsible for keeping the peace and fielding noise complaints, traffic offenses and applications for pub licenses. A man of about sixty, he is scholarly and contemplative, and can be found smoking a Tyrolean pipe.

MEET

Sir Frances Clitheroe
The Magistrate

Rabbi Frumkin Congregation of Barrow’s Green, a small synagogue that serves the small Jewish community in the village. The temple had fallen into an increasing state of disrepair for decades until Rabbi Frumkin intervened to save the synagogue, which he calls a national asset. He often joins with the town’s Vicar for interdenominational services, and enjoys watching cricket.

MEET

Rabbi Haskel Frumkin
The Village Rabbi

Meet all of the townspeople +