Bevins House

The Bevins House is a boarding house in the Southwark's Newington neighborhood, run by the young married couple Albert and Gladys Bevins. Unlike many similar boarding houses which make no effort to keep the private living accommodations of their boarders strictly segregated along proper gender lines, the Bevins House is split directly down the middle, with one section for bachelors and another for women and married couples, as is appropriate.

Proprietors

Albert Bevins

An engineer at the nearby Elephant and Castle train station, Albert inherited the grand old Bevins House from his aunt who elected to move to the country for her health. A proper young man with a bright future ahead of him, Albert married his schootime sweetheart recently, and the two of them now run the Bevins House, lending it a bit of their own youthful vigor and love for life, as well as a modern sensibility attractive to those looking for boarding in the Newington area.

Gladys Bevins

A sensible young woman with a fondness for supremely modern haberdashery, Gladys tends to the day-to-day operation of the Bevins House while her husband helps keep the trains running on Her Majesty's timetable. Hardworking and a good Christian woman, Gladys runs a tight ship. She is very scrupulous in ensuring the privacy of her residents, though any outward nonsense or impropriety will certainly earn a sharp retort from her, if not an insisted eviction. She is well aware of the reputation of many boarding houses in the Southwark, and will have none of that kind of goings-on in her home.

The House

The Bevins House is quite the modern house, for all it was built almost fifty years ago. It features a great number of very light and air windows, complete with fine draperies sewn by Gladys herself. The walls are decorated with beautiful wallpapering in light, comfortable pastoral hues, which set off the dark wood and jewel tones in the furnishings in a very fashionable and appealing taste.

Her one affectation is French porcelain, which she quite adores. Nearly every room in the house has an example or two of these sorts of crafts, though always of rigidly practical purpose, of course. The water basins and pitchers in every room are all French porcelain, as is her most treasured place settings (which only come out for holidays and the most special of occasions).

Mrs Bevins is a great believer in the loveliness of the natural British countryside - none of the "vulgar knick-knacks of the Far East so common these days" in her house, thank you. She is quite enamored of the Pastoral Movement, in fact, and looks forward to the day when her husband is successful enough to perhaps secure employment in a station far out in the country, away from the stink and illness of the big city.

First Floor

Ladies' Wing

The ladies' wing - intended for those few single women who pass Mrs. Bevins' muster, as well as the occasional newlyweds just moved to the city to make their lives together - is a place of understated floral elegance. Mrs. Bevins' love of the countryside shines through in the decor in this wing. The public areas of the house all have at least one simple vase of French porcelain with fresh flowers in it, and the smell of lavender pervades pleasingly.

• Portico: X
• Foyer: X
• Room Four: X
• Room Five: X
• Room Six: X
• Gentlemen's Dining: X

Bachelor's Wing

The bachelor's wing is - as its name suggests - intended for men only. It tends to say quite filled with residents, most of the time. The rooms in this wing are decorated with what Mrs. Bevins understands are the male sensibility, through the lens of her own pastoral interests, of course. As such, much of the color in this part of the house is a fine English hunter green, with complimentary brass metalworks here and there. The decorations themselves evoke hunting and riding scenes, though she has drawn the line at vulgar stuffed animal heads and the like, despite her husband's suggestions.

• Portico: X
• Foyer: X
• Room Four: X
• Room Five: X
• Room Six: X
• Gentlemen's Dining: X

Second Floor

Attic