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The Rise and Fall of Fullarton House

((copied from the original artice on the old ning, the backstory of that weird looking domed building making the noises Tenk dont like in Clockhaven bahahahahahaha))

As you sail into Clockhaven from the open Vernian sea, or as you walk up
the dock front’s along the mooring harbors past all the crammed in side
by side buildings the sight of what remains of the old Clockhaven
synagogue seem’s out of place with the rest of the region.

In the early days of New Babbage when clockwork machinations could be
heard all over the continent the Great Synagogue of Clockhaven stood out
from the rest of the buildings. Taking up most of the back quarter of
the region is expensive looking gold leaf domes, gold plated wall
ballistrades and marble vaults served the Jewish working community as a
place to worship and gather for important communal meetings with the
workforce and employers of the era.

However with the fall of the age of clockwork and the rise of the age of
steam vast changes to the inner lands of New Babbage took place, as the
spread of steam power went across the land vast industries and
workforces trained and managed to maintain and run the clockwork
machines which once covered the land soon found themselves out of a job.
Industries fell, workforces became unemployed and new industries with
new ideas of steam power started to take over. The workforce which once
worked in massive factories forging clockwork cogs soon found themselves
part of the demolition team taking down the same buildings they used to
work in, and then as part of the construction teams, making the
factories to produce the same boilers and fittings for the technology
which had costed them their job.

As the new industries moved in, a new workforce moved in with them. The
once bustling clockwork engineer communities started to dissipate and
move on to pastures new. As New Babbage started to get a thick covering
of soot and fog from all the boilers, the last of the clockwork staunch
workers moved away. What remained of the Jewish workforce was not enough
to cater for the high costs of maintaining the synagogue. The gold leaf
was stripped from the 3 domes, the dark emerald facade of the stone
masonry was chipped off and sold, the gold leafing of the ballistrades
and ornate workings of the great halls were auctioned off and with that
the synagogue was boarded up, and closed.

Less than 3 months later the land that the halls of the synagogue stood
on was sold on to the state, the entire back half of the old synagogue
which was where most of the halls were situated was demolished, leaving
only the domed and vaulted entrance way and cylindrical entrance into
what would have been the main hall. What remained of the building was
sold to a Mr Worthington, he planned to convert the remains of the
building into an observatory but just as work was finishing on the
telescope and concertina folding dome, the Great Observatory of Doctor
Obolensky had been finished, with a telescope 10 times more powerfull.
It made Mr Worthingtons efforts seem pointless.

Worthington kept the building, using the lower half of the structure as
his home. The upper half of the building was converted into storage
facilities once the telescope was stripped down and sold on as scrap.
Worthingtons fortunes took a turn for the worst though as a great
economic crisis swept the land. Old firms and employers once confident
of their future found themsevles bankrupt. The great Aetheric Power
& Engineering company found went bankrupt and along with it a vast
amount of the workforce was left unemployed. Mr Worthington decided to
sell off the land and the old building back to the state.

2 years passed. Many buildings in the Clockhaven estate was on the verge
of collapse and waiting to be demolished. Then the Major of New Babbage
opened a vast landsale, the entire region of Clockhaven went up for
tender, and with it, the old synagogue.

The old synagogue, now renamed by its owner as “Fullarton House” is now a
residence, Mr Morningtons “Holiday home”. Most of the internal
structure has been put aside for “experiments of the nature of
aetherical travelling through time”, most of his neighbours think he is a
bit crazy. The upper dome of the structure was converted into a
conservatory and the concertina folding dome has been repaired so the
dome once again opens and closes for privacy. The conservatory is open
to visitors and New Babbage residents all year round to sit and relax
in, as long as they, and i quote from Mr Mornington “don’t fiddle with
my test equipment on the ground floor!”. The conservatory is accesible
from an “Aetheric transportation device” on the ground floor, a small
black and gold seal on the floor which one touches to transport up to
the conservatory.

Fullarton House, as it looked on July 15th…2009

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One Comment

  1. Blackberry Harvey Blackberry Harvey August 10, 2010

    Is it my iPhone, or did the line breaks come across as hard breaks?

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