Reynard the Fox's House--a Hidden Gem in Victoria BC

As I mentioned before, all the places in my YA Dystopian novel, QUEST FOR THE ROSE, are real and in Victoria, Canada.
This is an unusual one. In fact, I don't know if it is still in existence today, as I can find no reference to it on the net.
In my book Esemeralda Midnight, the shy, nervous young heroine, meets up with an old man, Reynard the Fox, who is one of the last of the Wistren, the Wise, who were the wizards of Adanica before their powers were shattered by the incoming Sestren, a severe and oppressive religious order (but something else besides!) He invites her, against the rules of the instituation-like orphanage where she lives, to visit him at his mansion Hall i' the Wood.
   The Hall is based on a house I vitited as a young girl around Esmerelda's age. My brother worked for an English gentleman  who was a well known  merchant in town who was friends with the likes of John Wayne and Bing Crosby. He got to know my mother and seemed to like her; they both had a similar English/Irish background, and eventually he invited us out to his home. (I can't remember the road but it was very rural, with tall dark fir trees, and  not terribly far from Hatley Castle, then Royal Roads Military College.)
   I  was just discovering fantasy and I thought his place was magic. I had never seen a home like it. There were  aviaries and a waterfall and bridge, and green lawns covered in statues of Greek gods. The house was perches on raised terraces, kind of like depictions of Tolkien's Rivendell, and seemed a strange mixture of mock-Tudor, Swiss and even Chinese. Trees grew all about it, some conifer, some deciduous and  changing lovely colours in the Fall. Peacocks strutted along the roofline. Inside there was a stunning fountain made of blue tiles and then a series of dark panelled rooms, rich and mysterious .
  All thesefeatures  had a huge impression on me as a child of around 11, and Mr Reynolds himself seemed so stately and professorly, a man from another era.
  Most of the features of the house made it into my book...and physically Reynard the Fox is not unlike my brother's employer, though of course  he was not a wizard!
  I have no idea if the house still stands. It was so unique it would be a shame if it was destroyed. The owner died over 30 years ago at a ripe old age, and last I heard (in the 80's) the land was being divided and sold. The fate of the building was unknown.
  I always said if I was a billionaire I would buy the place....

Here is the only picture I have ever seen of  it, which the owner sent to my mother. It is dated 1978....

HALL I' THE WOOD, the maically-protected home of the wizard, Reynard Fox, father of Rosamunda, the Rose of the World,  missing since the Great War when the land of Adanica had its climate destroyed by the 'Holy Fire' (atom bomb) borne by the martyr St Tarcissian, and the religious order called the Sestren imposed a cruel regime of fear and punishment.
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QUEST FOR THE ROSE-DYSTOPIAN FANTASY SET IN AN ALTERNATIVE WORLD CANADA

So QUEST is finally out, in both paperback and kindle and is even making sales (smile).
As I mentioned in my  introductory post,  despite being a fantasy, the places in QUEST FOR THE ROSE are all real, although some of then, like the theme park calked Wooded Wonderland, which stood on the shores of Beaver Lake in Victoria, B.C., no longer exist.
  I will  give you some historical data on these places, as they were certainly inspirational to the mind of a young child and imprinted themselves of my fledgling writer's brain...

WOODED WONDERLAND
In 1962 (year I was born) a children's fairytale theme park was opened on the shores of Victoria's Beaver Lake. Owned by a family called Pettersen, the statues within were sculpted by a Hungarian artists, Elek Imredy. Although colourful, his statues were not cutesy Disneyfied images--they were far more folkloric, sometimes serious, sometimes as is the case of Red Riding Hood's wolf, quite sinister.
At the front of the park was a massive figure of Humpty Dumpty...in fact, there were TWO Humpty Dumpties. The first was replaced because his expression was said to be too sinister and frightening for the little kiddies to endure!
 The turnstile was composed of giant 'books' and beyond that a series of trails took you are past Little Boy Blue, the Three Bears, Jack and Jill, the Old Woman in the Shoe and all your other favourite fairytale characters.
   My favourite display was of Hickory Dickory Dock. This was a large clock, which had live mice inside. If you put in a coin the mice would come up and run up and down inside the clock. It does slightly fill me with horror today, though, as I am guessing the  coins falling onto the mice was what made them run. Not very humane...but it was the 60's.
  Behind the clock was a pond which had a mill complete with working weell. In the centre of  the millpond was a little island with two stones on them, one long, one fat. They had faces painted on them and as a very  little girl, I imagined them coming to life. This scene is described EXACTLY in QUEST FOR THE ROSE when the stones do come to life to save the heroine!
  Years later, in the early 70's,  long after the park had closed my friend Nina and I came to the lake on  an Easter Egg hunt. We got lost and stumbled onto a barbed wire fence, much broken by local teens. This was  surrounding the old site of Wooded Wonderland. Naturally we went to explore. It was eerie yet cool!  Most  of the figurines had been removed but the cottages and foundations  were still there, as was the pool with its two grinning stones. At the end ofthe park, kids were swinging from the trees on a pulleyline that had been  left up in the branches; not for me and  pretty chancy without  supervision...but hey, health and safety wasn't a big deal in the 70's!
    The Pettersens also had a similar theme park in Washington state and apparently many of the  figures from that one  still survive and are in storage. I have heard that all that remains of Wooded Wonderland today is the  little shallow pond. If I ever get back there again, might have to do a bit of adventuring....
(I have also  heard the Eggman (local name for humpty) and the books still exiusts, hidden away on private property in Victoria) 

AND IF YOU WANT TO CHECK OUT THIS WEIRD AND WONDERFUL DYSTOPIAN FANTASY... (good for exploring your own childhood weirdness especially if you grew up in weird Victoria and also for scaring the bejesus out of your kids...)

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#dystopian #YA #fantasy #Canada #childhoodmemories 

I got my rights back to my dystopian, post-Apocalyptic novel, QUEST FOR THE ROSE and have now published it on Amazon. It's a departure in subject matter for me, and was the first step back into writing after my illness in 2002.(From darkness a light can shine...an appropriate sentiment, as some of you may not know that in this illness I briefly lost much of my eyesight in both eyes and was suspected of having a brain or spinal tumour.)
QUEST has a Canadian setting unlike my other novels which are British Isles related--of course, this is where I grew up. I have collated all the childhood fantasy and the strangeness of Victoria BC (and yes, it's a strange old place--said to be more English than the English, with old mansions jostling next to native remains, houses thought to be haunted, high tea in the Empress hotel, giant whales in the waters, many ghost stories, a few imitation castles, spooky graveyards etc. It was even said in the 1980's to be the 'witchcraft capital of the world' and was known for the fraudulent 'Satanic memoir' --Michelle Remembers. (Weirdly enough, I went to school with the son of the shrink who concocted the devil worship hocum with Michelle.)
Even more oddly, the story, though fantasy, has autobiographical traits--the antagonist is based on a dreadful teacher I had in grade 5, the awful sister Elaine Marie. She believed in children being returned to a Victorian world, where just a look would curdle the blood and cruel discipline was necessary. Even if you were a GOOD, diligent pupil, that was not enough; in fact, she hated shy kids as much as 'bad' ones and thought it was her 'duty' to 'make' them 'stronger.' In truth, I believe she truly enjoyed tormenting children psychologically to soothe something abnormal in her own makeup...
Anyway, I know some of you are collecting my books, no matter what genre, so here it is, a mere .99p/.99C. If anyone has read Margaret Atwood's Handmaiden's Tale think of it as a more 'yound adult' simplified version with a similar theme--Canada in the grip of a post-apocalyptic religious takeover! I will be following shortly with a print edition but am a bit snowed under right now (and have a stinking cold!)
Thanks, as ever, guys, for all your support in my endeavours!
amzn.to/1QCwtqP New Dystopian fantasy available world wide.
A world of winter,ruled by a sinister religious order who keep the children of rebels as slaves...
this is the world in which young Esmerelda Midnight lives.
From alien teachers, and monsters in the cellar, to hospitals that amputate children's feet and desolate theme parks that come to life, a sometimes bleak, sometimes beautiful post-Apocalyptic world on the verge of total destruction--as the Sestren prepare for 'the Feast.'
Can shy, gauche Esmerelda stop them, by unleashing the untapped powers of the Rose of the World, hidden away by her tormentors for decades?
Only .99p./99c
‪#‎new‬ ‪#‎indie‬ ‪#‎dystopian‬ ‪#‎apocalyptic‬ ‪#‎fantasy‬ ‪#‎urban‬ ‪#‎evilnuns‬ ‪#‎schoolstory‬ ‪#‎victoriabc‬ ‪#‎canada‬ ‪#‎childabuse‬ ‪#‎bullying‬