Wagon House Inn
The Wagon House Inn is one of the largest inns in the City of Len Doa. It has 88 individual rooms that can accommodate 181 beds (should the need present) as well as room for as many as 40 servants and/or footmen above the wagon shop. There are stables for as many as 30 horses or ponies. The Wagon House also has a bathhouse that can provide steaming hot baths filled by gravity-fed pipes that can bathe as many as 12 people at a time.
Purpose / Function
The Wagon House Inn is a large inn very near the Bell Gate of the City of Len Doa that caters to overland merchants and traders that frequent the Bell Gate District of Len Doa. It offers rooms, meals, baths, and supplies to traders, travellers and locals alike.
Design
The Wagon House is roughly u-shaped, with the bulk of the inn and kitchens making up the largest portions of the structure and the older two towers and the wagon shop closing off the center court along the north-west edge of the property.
Special Properties
One of the most intriguing features of the Wagon House is its large cistern. Located on the upper levels of the partially collapsed northern tower (now the bathhouse), this cistern is a strongly supported oak structure that is lined in lead sheet and holds just more than 9,000 gallons of water that is drawn up to it by a treadwheel. This treadwheel powers a chain pump that can fill the entire cistern in just under an hour of operation. The water from the cistern can then be piped to either furnaces in the bathhouse itself or to the main kitchens of the inn where it is used to fill pots and wash away waste. The entire complex is connected to a sewer that leads directly under the city walls and empties into an area of low ground about 200 yards from the Bell Gate. The height of this cistern allows water to flow to nearly every room on the first floor of the inn and bathhouse and the furnaces can heat that water to scalding temperatures that provide hot baths for travellers.
Architecture
The Wagon House is a large structure standing fully four stories high and covering nearly a quarter of an acre of land. Most of the structure was built nearly 40 years ago, long before the current city walls were even begun. The oldest sections of the buildings are two large square towers built of large basalt blocks, but only one of these old towers is still complete and standing. The other partially collapsed due to a fire about the time the gatehouse was being completed. The bulk of the remaining buildings are built of local limestone and timber, with fine slate roofs and many glazed windows. There is a large wagon shop and a well-equipped stables and a very fine (if somewhat small) bathhouse as well.
Tourism
Located just a few paces inside the walls at the Bell Gate, the Wagon House is literally the first structure seen when one comes through the Bell Gate. Immediately facing the inside of the gatehouse is the 50' tower of the Wagon House. Square built with dark basalt stone, the tall tower is now used as a blacksmith shop (first floor), staff residences (top floors) and storage for the wagon shop and stable (second floor). This tower has a cellar, as well, that connects to the cellars under both main inn and the bathhouse.
The bathhouse is built into the remains of a partially fallen tower constructed identically to the tall tower. The bathhouse consists of the remaining three stories of the northern-most tower of the complex. It has a deep cellar where three wood-fired furnaces heat piped water to various temperatures and then pump them throughout the complex.
There is a large two-story shop attached to the tall tower that contains the wagon shop and stables. Above this structure is loft space with room for hay and grain for livestock as well as accommodations for staff and servants of travellers and traders.
Type
Inn
Parent Location
