Places in Oakhaven

Radworth is one ward of a Midlands city that does not exist. These are the buildings you can walk into, and what tends to happen in them.

Nightclub

The Sweatbox

A brick factory that stopped making anything a long time ago, and found a second use for its floor. The…

Licensed betting office

Single-zero roulette on a UK table — all English on the baize, no French — and every one of the…

Fish bar

Ten things on the chalk board and a fryer that has been going long enough to have opinions. You queue, you…

Convenience

The shop that is open when the supermarket is not. Around thirteen hundred separate items on the shelves, and…

Butcher

White painted brick and an oxblood fascia, a six-module glazed serve-over counter at the front and a proper…

Parish church

Eighteen sixty-eight, Gothic Revival, with a broach spire that is the tallest thing on the skyline until the…

Police

Where the game starts, though not in a way you chose. A car leaves this building with a young man in the back…

Public house

A corner shop unit that became a pub and never looked back. Three floors of it, with an iron-bracket hanging…

Civic

Brick, a flat roof and a parapet, twenty-four metres by fourteen over two storeys, and a light green…

Golf club

Eighteen holes on the rising ground north of the estate — par 72, six thousand four hundred and…

Hydroponics

A Victorian corner unit with two ceiling speakers playing Oakhaven FM to nobody in particular. Everything a…

Snooker club

A 1904 north-light billiard hall, built when a room full of tables was a respectable way to spend an evening…

Members’ club

Nineteen thirty-two, Crittall windows, and a concert room with a stage at one end and a twelve-metre servery…

Council

Eighty metres by sixty of yard, sheds and vehicle doors, and the place every shift on the fly-tip round…

Waste & recycling

The end of the line for everything the town throws away, and the end of a shift for anyone working the…