Puttenham is a nine-story village near John’s lighthouse, defined by the contrast between its modest local industries and the surrounding countryside. Though close to the London routes and settled enough to send workers across the hills, it attracts few visitors; that quiet makes it part of the isolation John initially seeks and the setting from which his retreat becomes public.

Setting and Local Character

In the valley between the Hog’s Back and the sandy hill where the lighthouse stands, Puttenham consists of a village nine stories high, with silos, a poultry farm, and a small vitamin-D factory. Its compact height and production facilities mark it as a World State settlement, but it is not a busy destination. The surrounding area opens onto heath and ponds, making the village a modest built landmark within the landscape around the lighthouse.

Isolation and the Countryside

Puttenham’s lack of attractions helps explain why John can live alone nearby during his first days there. The village has no links for the popular leisure game Electro-magnetic Golf, and the nearest Riemann-surfaces are at Guildford. With no good reason for World State residents to come, flowers and landscape remain the area’s principal attractions. The lighthouse is only a quarter of an hour’s flight from the Charing-T Tower, yet the surrounding hills and heath make the locality feel far removed from London’s crowds.

John’s Retreat and Its Exposure

John’s solitude does not last untouched. Three Delta-Minus landworkers from one of Puttenham’s Bokanovsky Groups are driving toward Elstead when they notice him outside the abandoned lighthouse. Their discovery of his act of self-punishment turns a private ritual into a spectacle for World State observers: they stop and watch, counting his actions, then identify what they see through the language of Ford worship. Puttenham is thus both the quiet setting that enables John’s withdrawal and the nearby community through whose workers that withdrawal is exposed.