Ballentree Moor

Ballentree Moor is a fictional location featured on the Showtime television series Penny Dreadful. It appeared in a flashback story in the third episode of season two titled, "The Nightcomers".

History
Ballentree Moor was located on the moors in the West Country in England. In the year 1644, English statesman Oliver Cromwell came to a cottage on the moors occupied by a witch named Joan Clayton. He had fallen out of favor with the royalists, and Clayton offered him succor. As reward for her aide, he gave her the rights to the cottage and the lands surrounding it.

By the late 19th century, most of the area surrounding the moor was owned by a nobleman named Sir Geoffrey Hawkes. The region was populated by several cattle farms, and worked by farmers who owed their allegiance to Hawkes.

Joan 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.

Residents of

 * Joan Clayton

Appearances

 * Penny Dreadful: The Nightcomers