History Main / CampbellCountry

* In Incase's Webcomic/TheInvitation, all but one panel takes place within a sleepy British village where our protagonist has his summer home, [[spoiler: as well as the eldritch realm he opens up a portal to.]]

** "Literature/TheHound1924": Almost the entire story takes place in the protagonists' ancient manor-house on the moors in England. They live in isolation and the lack of social control suits them to set up a museum filled with grave goods and body parts personally stolen. What they learn when they steal a supernaturally imbued grave good is that isolation also means that there is no one to stand by them when they are beset by huge bats and what may be a phantom hound. St. John gets mauled to death one night when walking home from the distant railway station and the narrator moves to London thereafter, destroying the museum before he goes.

* ''Franchise/HarryPotter''

* "Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls" is about a man traveling to his family's ancestral English home, which has a long history of spooky events dating back to ancient times.

* The TropeNamer is Creator/RamseyCampbell, who sets many of his stories in the Severn Valley, a fictional region in Gloucestershire. Some notable towns located in the Severn Valley include:

->He's the hairy-handed gent\\

Ah-hoo, werewolves of London!

Not to be confused with Campbell ''County'', of which the US has five. Also not to be confused with Creator/BruceCampbell Country,[[note]]The cabin from ''Film/TheEvilDead'' was located in Hamblen County, Tennessee, a couple counties over from that state's Campbell County.[[/note]] which has more comedy and a higher probability of survival due to, well, Creator/BruceCampbell.

* The protagonist of ''Film/AnAmericanWerewolfInLondon'' gets attacked by a werewolf and infected with lycanthropy while backpacking through [[OopNorth the Yorkshire moors]] with his friend (who dies during the attack and who subsequently begins showing up as a SpiritAdvisor). Before the monster shows up, the heroes visit a rural village where the locals give ominous warnings to stay on the road and beware the full moon. Bonus points for the iconic [[AdjectiveAnimalAlehouse pub]] called [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace the Slaughtered Lamb]].
* A variation in ''Film/DieMonsterDie'', a very loose adaptation of ''Literature/TheColourOutOfSpace''. The movie moves the location of ''Arkham'' to England rather than America. The town is plagued by problems caused by a radioactive meteorite.
* More werewolves: ''Film/DogSoldiers'' gives us a squad of UsefulNotes/{{Brit|sWithBattleships}}ish soldiers battling werewolves while training in the UsefulNotes/{{Scot|land}}tish Highlands.

* D'Ampton in ''Film/TheLairOfTheWhiteWorm'' is a small village in England that houses a giant dragon and reptilian vampire worshippers.
* ''Film/TheLodgers'' is a gothic horror film set in an isolated, crumbling family estate adjacent to a rural Irish town.

* Creator/StephenKing's "Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes Crouch End" is a Cthulhu Mythos story set in Crouch End in north London.

* ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles'' is largely set in a grim, dismal little village on the brooding Devonshire moors, a place far from modern civilization where communication with the outside world is difficult, neighbours are remote, the ground under your feet is treacherous and may suddenly become a thick bog that could swallow you alive, and where any number of ancient supernatural horrors may be lurking in the long, dark night and the thick, impenetrable fog that cloaks the land, while the local landed gentry, the Baskerville family, are the subjects of [[TheSinsOfTheFathers an ancestral curse]] dating back to a mid-17th Century ghost story. Ultimately subverted, however, since -- this being a Literature/SherlockHolmes story, after all -- the true power behind the events of the story turns out to ultimately have a [[DoingInTheWizard mundane]], [[ScoobyDooHoax down-to-earth solution]], and the Baskerville curse ultimately just turns out to be a piece of colourful folklore.

** [[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0603071h.html#05 "The Watcher by the Threshold."]] is set in the Scottish highlands and involves demonic possession.

* Creator/JohnBuchan (best known for ''Literature/TheThirtyNineSteps'') wrote various stories in this setting:

* Even before Ramsey Campbell, turn-of-the-century author Creator/MRJames commonly used rural England as a setting in his horror stories. One notable example was the town of Barchester, originally created by Creator/AnthonyTrollope, for the setting of a ghost story.
* Creator/BrianLumley created a Lovecraft Country of his own in NE England, complete with a satellite colony of Deep Ones.
* Most of Creator/ArthurMachen's novellas and short stories, and his novel ''Literature/TheGreatGodPan'', have a rural Welsh or London background in which [[EldritchAbomination sinister ancient horrors]] lurk and are [[BodyHorror capable of interbreeding]] with modern people. Creator/HPLovecraft acknowledged Machen's great influence on the genesis of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos.

* While Creator/StephenKing normally sets his stories in LovecraftCountry, his short story ''Crouch End'' was a Cthulhu Mythos story set in Crouch End in north London.

** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', the scenes of Voldemort's family seem very Lovecraftian/Campbellian, in that they are portrayed as horribly inbred as a consequence of being such an ancient family, a theme Lovecraft often touched upon. The mere tone and description of the place they lived in sounds a little Lovecraftian itself. No wonder Tom Riddle [[CreepyChild turned out so screwed up...]]

* Creator/CharlesStross did a neat thing with ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' (essentially SpyFiction meets CosmicHorrorStory): the English lost city of Dunwich (which Lovecraft used as a name for a fictional town) was not lost at all, but rather the training ground for the Laundry, a secret organization that prevents "reality incursions." Apparently someone in the Laundry noticed the very odd census reports, and the citizens were relocated and the town erased off the maps. The only way to get there is with a specially-programmed GPS unit and a key for the appropriate wards. Stross' Dunwich is also slowly sinking into the water.

* Creator/HPLovecraft himself did this: "Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls" is about a man traveling to his family's ancestral English home, which has a long history of spooky events dating back to ancient times.

* Several of modules of ''TabletopGame/LamentationsOfTheFlamePrincess'' (basically a D&D-clone with emphasis on weird-fantasy and horror), take place in a fantasy equivalent of Campbell Country, the remote town of Pembrooktonshire.

There is a decent amount of precedent for this, and for good reason. The rain, fog, and lonely moors all give the setting a nice creepy feel. And as the old saying goes, "An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way while an American thinks a hundred years is a long time." In other words, England is a much smaller country with a much longer history. It's therefore easier to believe that an English village [[TownWithADarkSecret was the site of some dreadful secret dating back to medieval, Roman or pagan times]]. Creator/HPLovecraft, in contrast, had a more limited historical horizon (the early 17th century) for his New England tales, unless he used MagicalNativeAmerican horrors.

Lovecraft and Campbell Countries tend to differ in scale. It's much harder to believe that cosmic events could happen in the relatively small country of England with absolutely ''nobody'' noticing. [[note]]Although a wee bit north in UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}}, the mountains and islands could theoretically provide some isolation.[[/note]] By contrast, in the United States, even in a single region like New England, isolation comes relatively cheap. Essentially, in LovecraftCountry, the old secrets are ''very secret'', whereas in Campbell Country the old secrets are ''very old''. As a result, small European and British settings are often used for simpler horror stories, such as HauntedHouse tales, as there are so many old houses, castles and abbeys around the place.

Named for a suggestion to UsefulNotes/{{Brit|ain}}ish writer Creator/RamseyCampbell by Lovecraft follower and Literature/CthulhuMythos creator Creator/AugustDerleth regarding the logistical limits of LovecraftCountry: to create your own equivalent in a place you know, either in your home country or a place you have visited.

** Brichester, a university town that appears to be a counterpart to Lovecraft's Arkham.

* The 1922 short story by E.F. Benson, "[[http://www.lesvampires.org/negotium.html Negotium Perambulans in Tenebris]]", is set in Polearn, an isolated Cornish seaside fishing village, where an eldritch horror victimises wanton desecrators of the local church, and attacks when their lights go out (prefiguring HPL's own "The Haunter in the Dark").

** Downplayed in the first novel, ''Literature/BritsuneGarden''. Shadonis are spooky horned vulpine {{Youkai}} who are the main antagonists. They infiltrate the gardens of Buckingham Palace and ''[[DemonicPossession possessed]]'' some Igiriko individuals. It's up to the royal family and the remaining Igiriko to restore the garden to its former glory and seal the Shadoni race away.

* Downplayed in ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' as it rarely employs HorrorTropes, but one can't help but wonder how Gillitie Forest's [[TheTrickster Trickster-god]] and his race of technophobic shadow-men have remained hidden from the rest of the UK for so long.

* More werewolves: ''Film/DogSoldiers'' gives us a squad of UsefulNotes/{{Brit|sWithBattleships}}ish soldiers battling werewolves in the UsefulNotes/{{Scot|land}}tish Highlands.

* As yet another werewolf-related example, English village of Blackmoor from ''Film/TheWolfman2010'' definitely fits this trope, and it even comes complete with scary woods!

* The English village of Blackmoor from ''Film/TheWolfman2010'' definitely fits this trope, and it even comes complete with scary woods!

Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor
-->-- '''Creator/WarrenZevon''', "Werewolves of London"

* Creator/HPLovecraft himself did this: "Literature/TheRatsInTheWalls" is about a man traveling to his family's ancestral home, which has a long history of spooky events dating back to ancient times.

** Lower Tadfield in ''Literature/GoodOmens'' subverts this along with TownWithADarkSecret. It's home to TheAntichrist, who's also a RealityWarper. But since this kid was raised as [[AntiAntichrist a normal boy]] and doesn't initially even realise the extent of his power, he's been unconsciously "warping" the town into an idyllic English village. Some characters are unsettled by just ''how'' [[UncannyVillage unnaturally picture-perfect]] Lower Tadfield is, but TheAntichrist's goal ''isn't'' ToCreateAPlaygroundForEvil, but rather to create a playground for himself and for his chums.

Rural variants of this trope tend to overlap with HillbillyHorrors. For similar settings in the DeepSouth, TheWildWest, and {{Ruritania}}, see respectively SouthernGothic, WeirdWest, SinisterSouthwest and {{Uberwald}}.

Rural variants of this trope tend to overlap with HillbillyHorrors. For similar settings in the DeepSouth, TheWildWest, and {{Ruritania}}, see respectively SouthernGothic, WeirdWest, and {{Uberwald}}.