Owner: Wayne Family
Designation: Residents
Affiliation: Civilian
First Appearance:
Detective Comics #28 (June, 1939)
Brief:
Located in the Crest Hill community in Bristol Township, Wayne Manor is twelve miles from Gotham City, standing amongst hills that are honeycombed with caverns and tunnels collectively known as the Catacombs.
It is most famously known as the residents of the Wayne Family, however it also serves as a public façade that hides many caverns and tunnels, used by the Waynes throughout the years, directly underneath its foundations.
History:
The ten-bedroom Wayne Manor, which was shaped as a stylized “W” when seen from the air, was originally designed by Nathan van Derm for Darius Wayne in 1795. The manor was inherited by his sons; Solomon Zebediah Wayne and Joshua Thomas Wayne in 1858.
While the manor was being constructed the Wayne siblings learned of the catacombs beneath the mansion and intended to exploit them for humanitarian purposes. As part of the Underground Railroad, they used the secret caverns to smuggle slaves from the South up the East Coast to safety in Canada. During construction, the area was discovered to be infested by bats from the caves. The area was "cleansed" by unleashing owls to eat the bats that ventured from the caves.
Following Joshua’s death the manor was left abandoned until it was rebuilt by Solomon’s son, Alan Wayne, and daughter-in-law, Catherine van Derm. After her passing, Alan Wayne integrated a funeral “Garden of Death” into the design; shaped in the form of a bat in honour of her memory. Along with the Wayne Family cemetery, a hidden “Corpse-road” (a series of roads that connected outlying churches and towns to "mother" churches with burial rites) was created under the manor grounds.
Subsequent generations of the Wayne Family lived in the manor, leading up to Thomas and Martha Wayne, who raised their child, Bruce Wayne, within the manor with the assistance of the family butler Jarvis Pennyworth and, following Jarvis' death at the hands of the Court of Owls, his son, Alfred Pennyworth.
Following the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne, the manor was passed onto Alfred's care until Bruce came of age and following Bruce's return from overseas the manor once again served as the home of a member of the Wayne family; with Bruce using the cavern system below the manor to slowly develop an underground headquarters for his operation as the Batman.
Following the Cataclysm; an earthquake that leveled the majority of Gotham City, the manor’s west wing and the property grounds, including the cave system, were significantly damaged and they remained as such throughout the year that Gotham was declared a No Man's Land by the United States Government.
Rebuilt from scratch, the manor’s reconstruction was inspired from the Gothic edifices designed by Cyrus Pinkney; Gotham City’s original architect. Looking more like a European castle, with battlements and turrets, the manor was designed to be as eco-friendly as possible, powered with solar panels and other devices. It is also wired with a sophisticated security system to protect its residence and the secret catacombs that lay beneath it.
Following the Infinite Crisis incident, the Earth and its history was reshaped and the manor suddenly returned to its pre-cataclysm appearance, although the cave system below simply became a combination of pre-cataclysm and post-cataclysm designs.
Original
Post-No Man's Land
Post-Infinite Crisis
Trivia[]
- The Gotham Historical Society managed Wayne Manor during the years that Bruce Wayne was living at the Wayne Foundation Building.
- During Bruce Wayne's tenor in the manor, the main gate is a quarter mile from the main house.
- The address of Wayne Manor before the Infinite Crisis was 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Bristol County, Gotham City.