History of the Blackwood Manor

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The building that Raymond was restoring had never been a grand castle or a noble seat of power. It had been a working manor house — the heart of a prosperous border farm.

Two centuries earlier, a minor frontier landholder named Aldric Blackwood had raised it on the slight rise near the spring. He chose the spot with care: high enough to stay dry, close enough to the best fields, and near the clear water that made the holding valuable. The original house was built of local stone and heavy timber — thick walls, a steep roof against the snow, a large kitchen hearth, storerooms that opened toward the yard, and simple sleeping chambers above. It was never meant to impress visitors from the capital. It was meant to endure hard winters, hold the farm’s accounts, and give the people who worked the land a solid place to return to at night.

For several generations the manor and the farm prospered together. The Blackwood family sold grain and timber into the valley and beyond. In difficult years they kept their stores open to Oakhaven at fair prices, and the village remembered them with a rough, practical gratitude. The house itself grew modestly over time — a new wing for storage, a stronger stable block, better flooring — but it never lost its character as a working home.

Decline came slowly. A run of poor heirs, bad debts, and one owner who tried to live beyond what the northern soil could support left the place weakened. When the last of the direct line died without a clear successor, the manor was already half-neglected. Twenty-three years of true abandonment finished the work: the roof collapsed in sections, the upper floors became unsafe, and the walls began to open under frost and rain. By the time Raymond bought the land, the manor was only a broken shell above sound foundations — still carrying the shape of the old house, but no longer able to keep out the weather.

That was the history the stones still held. Not glory. Not legend. Only the memory of a place that had once worked hard for the valley and might do so again.