It seems to be in the US if I am not mistaken,possibly Manhattan.
The thing that throws me off is it says on a giant flat topped moutain and the Lightning Stone which sounds more like the stone in the Temple of the Mount
It says at one time the World was ruled from there(United Nations),on an island.
The land of the Franc was far to the East.

I read it very implicitly as being somewhere in Albion... i.e. England. Certainly within Europe.

I guess we'd look at geological maps of the respective regions and look for haematite formations in the vicinity?

EDIT: My NDA means I had to self-edit. Graham has said a little on this subject, which I guess you will see soon enough once the videos are approved? :D

Well England is West of Franc too once again thrown off by the working FAR to the east.
Look foward to the vid I hope it is approved soon.

I'll tell you that is what I really like with the new Heresy series seeing 2k places turn up 30000 years later.
And I guess Mericans and still Fat and Lazy in 30k too :lol:
(When Horus says to Vivar we are a warship not the Parlours of Merica)
USA Slanneshi all the way from 2k to 30k :D

Without doubt its england the only slight niggle is the Franc being described as far to the east, though i would say that america qualifies as rather more than far away from france.
In all other respect the notion of the island being cut off from the "mainland" which was a bridgeable distance, the nearness of the scandinavian raiders, even the notion of the world being ruled from there (british empire anyone ;) )

Certainly making the fiction come to the forefront in Science Fiction. :lol:

The seat of Imperial governance is in India, according to the fluff.

AFAICS, Albion is just a rather antiquated region of what would have been once Europe. I think there will have been a large amount of tidal/coastline changes in 28,000 years, so it's not unreasonable to assume that we may have gained or lost land in that time, and the map will look quite different.

Don't forget, modern-day Britain is not just one island, but many.

I felt that it was somewhere like St Michael's mount, a small-ish island off a larger mainland which was west of France.

Although Ireland could be said to be an island of the coast of Britain, and the irish sea could be spannable.

But the bit about 'a land that was once said to have ruled the world' only works if you consider Ireland part of the British isles.

I've just quickly skimmed the story, but can find no reference to 'The land of Franc being far to the east'. The only place mentione being far to the east was the ruins of Ursh.
But it does say that he crossed the silver bridge four days after leaving home, travelling across a land recovering from war. Then it says he crossed tp Europa and caroused across the continent.

It sounds more and more like the Last Church is somewhere in the British Isles.

P.S. Shroud; Albion is usually a reference to Britain originating in Gaelic mythology about a British Giant of the same name.

Shroud put it best where the last church stands could be under the Atlantic right now not to surface for 10,000 years,
And lets face it New York would most certainly of been a crater by then.
I think it is in England now myself.

I never thought of Mont St Michel... that place is spectacular! :) It's technically on the coast of France though, since you drive over a causeway to reach it.



Could France have been said to rule the world? The Napoleonic empire was never quite as expansive as the British Empire, but they had a bloody good crack at it!

Is that a church on top or a castle
either way I'd sure like to check that place out

It's an abbey/monastery. You can go right up to the top of the tallest tower! :D

The buildings around the base of the mount are shops and restaurants, so you can basically spend a whole day on the island and not run out of things to do.

It's in Normandy, just 1km off the French coast. I definitely recommend it if you ever get over that way - I made a good two days out of that and touring the D-Day beaches a few years ago.

Sorry Shroud, but wrong mount.

I was talking about the one off the coast of Cornwall.

http://www.stmichaelsmount.co.uk/

Anyway, the current tallest mountain in the British is Ben Nevis, Which is in the Grampian mountains of Scotland.
And that is a long way from France.

Graham McNeill is Scottish, too.

The first descriptive passage of where the church is should be everything needed to identify its location... "A storm-lashed island shrouded in mists"... A typical description of any British summer <_<

Although the remaining description of Uriah's travels in his youth are quite handy for giving 30k Terran locations. Crossing to Europa, Tali (Italy), across the Mediterranean, the Nordafrik Conclaves (North Africa) and on to the ruins of Ursh far to the East... To me that would place Ursh as India? South East Asia? Australasia?

I understood Ursh to be everything east of Turkey and as far north as Russia.

Without going back to some of my HH novels I honestly don't know... It was phrased as a question and your answer seems to make plenty of sense. Russia didn't really occur to me at first but it certainly fits with the background. A powerful and warlike state/territory. Good call

The walk up Mont St. Michel is pretty steep. All the old folk leaning on railings, trying to catch their breath was amusing. You'd get more and more of them the further up you got.

Oh yeah, it is an island at high tide - you have to leave before a certain time or get stranded there...

It is possible that Ursh has some link with Ur, an ancient city of Mesopotamia within modern-day Iraq.
There is also a mythical Mesopotamian character who's name can be Urshanabi, and is a ferryman across the waters of death.

I say this because I have not yet found a modern-day place that ends with -ursh!

I'll throw in my two pence here. I've not read TOH so I'm only going on the discriptions given by you guys, could it be the island of Anglesey.

Where was it that Camelot is supposed to be based on?

Take your pic of any pre/roman settlement thats name shares letters in common with Camelot and it has probbably been sugested that its based on that place.

Bagdad :lol:

Just read 'The Last Church' last night and it got me to thinking about the location. I wonder if it might've been somewhere like Skellig Michael off the west coast of Ireland. There's a monastery on Skellig Michael that's been there since before the Vikings started raiding Europe and its perched on the top of a wee island, so it fits the description. Being on the Atlantic coast of Ireland as it is covers the storm lashing and mists.

The monastery on Iona founded by St. Columba is another possibilty, though Iona is relatively flat. It is, however just off the Scottish mainland and like Skellig Michael was raided by the Vikings, some four times in fifty years. Also Albion is the Gaelic for Scotland, as well as meaning Britain as a whole in Classical texts, so that gives further credence to Iona being a possibility.

This is the canonical location of the Last Church. :D Wow, a TGC exclusive!

Actually Alba is the Gaelic for Scotland. I like the Iona theory. One of my favourite parts of the book is the description of the whisky - clearly an Islay malt from the description (make mine a Laphroaig!).

Regardless, if not somewhere in Scotland, the last church is blatantly somewhere around Nottingham. GW loves to be self-refferential in the least subtle of ways.

The next BLTV video will have Mr McNeill spelling it out for us... :D

I'm probably just missing it, but...

Do have a link to the BLTV videos?

Thanks...

Ooh, an exclusive. :D

Unless it's hidden out-of-shot, does this mean the Last Church in the story is not based on a currently-existing building?

It is not currently in existence, although the "silver bridge" is an allusion to an existing structure... more details soon!

BLTV videos can be found on YouTube. Search for "black library tv" or follow links from the blog on the BL website.

Aye I meant Alba, don't know why I typed Albion...weird, especially as I studied Gaelic.

Silver bridge...Scottish...Skye perhaps?

That picture does look like how I remember Skye too, rocky, craggy and covered in fething cloud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI9_w65CzLU

Skip to 4:16 ;)

not enough mist... looks good though

I cannot be held responsible for real-world weather. :lol: