Brichester University is a fictional school created by Ramsey Campbell, part of his Severn Valley setting for Cthulhu Mythos stories. It is located in Campbell's invented town of Brichester; as Brichester was created as an analogue to Lovecraft Country's Arkham, Brichester University is Campbell's analogue to Miskatonic University.
Overview[]
In the introduction to The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, Campbell notes that while most sorcerers in Brichester "practise their arts secretly...there still is a regrettable cult among students at the university".
One of the first mentions of Brichester University is in "The Horror From the Bridge", where it's said "they were familiar with things whose existence is not recognized by science." The story notes that "the staff at the University often met with terrors which they had never thought could exist, for they were sometimes called by the frantic inhabitants of various localities to quell phenomena which were rising from hiding." A librarian at the university, Philip Chesterton, is instrumental in foiling the eldritch plans of Lionel Phipps.
In "The Mine on Yuggoth", Brichester native Edward Taylor enrolled in the university in 1918, where he "led a witch cult." All members, including "the artist, Nevil Craughan, and the occultist, Henry Fisher", were expelled.
"The Inhabitant of the Lake" describes the "red-brick houses and steeples which surround the central white University building" in Brichester. A manuscript apparently left by cult leader Thomas Lee at Lakeside Terrace admits that he "dabbled in the forbidden practices at Brichester University." Professors from the university in that story find that the mysterious metal spine that killed artist Thomas Cartwright was "composed of living cells."
"The Plain of Sound" tells the story of three Brichester University students who find a mysterious cottage on the way back from Severnford; it used to be the home of Arnold Hird, a Brichester professor who war "asked to leave the university because he attacked someone when they disagreed with him", and said "he'd return and astonish everybody some day".
While "The Enchanted Fruit" mentions "the hard bleached University smashing and swallowing ornate facades", in The Darkest Part of the Woods, Brichester University's architecture is more traditional, with a "long, lofty Gothic facade, and high pointed windows."