West Country

The West Country refers to a region in the country of England. On the Showtime television series Penny Dreadful, it was a setting that appeared in the third episode of season two titled "The Nightcomers".

In the 1880s, the West Country was located in the moors of Western England, and populated by cattle farms. A land owner named Geoffrey Hawkes held most of the territory in the region. One area that Hawkes did not have a legal claim to however, was Ballentree Moor, which housed a cottage owned by a witch named Joan Clayton. More than two-hundred years ago, Clayton gave succor to an unfavorable British man named Oliver Cromwell, and as reward, awarded her a legal deed to the land - a contract that was still binding even two centuries later.

Clayton's sister, Evelyn Poole, was also a witch, and the leader of a group of nocturnal hex-masters called the Nightcomers. Poole wanted to do away with Clayton, but the cottage was warded against any witch other than herself.

Around this time, a troubled young English woman named Vanessa Ives came to Clayton's cottage. Aware that she was a witch, she had hoped that Clayton could help her to discover what she was, and what her place in the world was to be. Reluctantly, Clayton let her in.

Meanwhile, Evelyn Poole used her resources to insinuate herself into the bedroom of Sir Geoffrey Hawkes. She manipulated him into taking up measures to destroy Clayton, and even went so far as to kill numerous heads of cattle in the West Country that belonged to Hawkes' farmers. She had Hawkes believe that it was Joan Clayton responsible for these deaths.

Geoffrey Hawkes went to a local tavern and riled the patrons up into a frenzy, forming a lynch mob. They marched over to Clayton's cottage ready to execute her. Clayton emerged to face them, and they suspended her from a tree, poured scalding pitch upon her body, then lit it afire, burning her to death.

Before she died however, Joan Clayton named Vanessa Ives as the new owner of her estate.