Geography of Lendert

Lendert is the populated urban region around and including Lendert-with-Cadell, the capital city of Great Nortend. It has the informal status of a county in se, although not formally a county. It consists of the capital proper, the twin cities of Lendert and Cadell, encompassed within a single city wall structure. These two cities have a combined population of approximately 273,400 people.

Lendert also includes much of the surrounding urban conglomeration spreading into the surrounding counties, with a total population of just over 3.3 million people, jointly and severally administered by the various local councils and vestries through the Sessions of Lendert. Taken as a whole, greater Lendert is the largest urban region in Great Nortend, with Limmes and Rhise training quite far behind.

Topography

Lendert is located in upper central Lesser Erbonia, around the point where the counties of Enley, Larkshire and Teyshire meet on the northern banks of the river Wessert, as the Wert is known below Leddonmeathe, in the broad Wessert Plains. The city has spread over to the southern side of the Wessert, generally known as Offbank.

Though the region is mostly flat, Lendert-with-Cadell is built upon and around a major rocky outcrop known as Lerdenstone, which rises around 40 yards above the surrounding land. Flowing through the north side of Lendert, the Hame and the Burm, feed into the Wessert. These tributaries have been diverted and canalised over the centuries, and form part of the complex canal network of greater Lendert. The Hame itself was diverted down Cadell, through Inner Ward and Lendert, in order to supply the moat surrounding the Castle of Lerdenstone. Though much of this moat as been filled in, the Hame still runs down the man-made course through central Lendert-with-Cadell.

Open spaces

There are many areas of open space around Lendert, owing to its history of feudal landholdings and fairly contained growth. Within the city of Lendert, approximately 25 acre Stole Park is the remant of the portion of the ancient Stole Forest, a royal hunting forest which was granted by the Edmund IV in 1264 for the founding of the Abbey of Lendert. The portion held by the King remains in the far north of the greater Lendert region as the 4,500 acre Manstolewood, still to-day a royal hunting ground open to the people as a public park. Manstolewoodmere is a large lake within the Manstolewood, fed by the River Hame, and which serves as the main reservoir for the drinking water of north Lendert.

Divisions

The cities of Lendert and Cadell, are administered as a single city of two boroughs and 28 wards, each which elect aldermen to the city council. Greater Lendert, however, is administered by more than 300 separate local councils and vestries, organised into five hundreds—Plarshed, Manstole, Clementsfield, High Havage-with-Galwick, and Offbank. The bailiffs of these hundreds send a jury of “suitours” to sit at the Municipal Sessions of Lendert by right of the Greater Lendert Act, effectively serving as de facto aldermen for the “wards” of greater Lendert.