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Settlement Association

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Calthrop

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Something which showed up elsewhere on these Forums, earlier this year: Middleton is one of various places in England, whose inhabitants are nicknamed "Moonrakers". The old thing about dimwits seeing the moon's reflection in a pond, and trying thence to capture said heavenly body by raking it out. The folk of Wiltshire have widely had that nickname applied to them -- Wiltshire people anyway, will say that same was not about genuine simpletons; but about the smuggling business, with contraband hidden in ponds, and those involved "covering" their getting the stuff out, by pretending to be moon-questing simpletons. A Wiltshire settlement said to have featured such goings-on: is Bishops Cannings, a little way north-east of Devizes.
 

Calthrop

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Blundeston has a considerable Dickens-related association -- which the village worthies tend rather to "harp on": the settlement is featured in David Copperfield, thinly disguised as "Blunderstone". A much-loved episode in another work by Dickens -- the Pickwick Papers -- deals with a gloriously rowdy and corrupt by-election in the town called in the book, "Eatanswill" (ref. voters being bribed with free food and booze). I had long had the impression from somewhere, that Dickens based Eatanswill on Towcester, Northamptonshire; and doings witnessed there; but have lately come across suggestions that the real-life "model" was actually Sudbury, Suffolk.
 

Tetragon213

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Film director Matthew Baughn was married in the chapel in Shimpling. Vaughn's directorial debut film, Layer Cake (2004), was partially filmed on the Isle of Dogs
 

Calthrop

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Film director Matthew Baughn was married in the chapel in Shimpling. Vaughn's directorial debut film, Layer Cake (2004), was partially filmed on the Isle of Dogs
(My italics): Not -- in this very general "ongoing" area of England -- at Layer-de-la-Haye, Essex :smile: ? (I won't give up my day job...)

Erith in the London Borough of Bexley is another area that in medieval times had its farmland areas protected from the River Thames by the process known as "inning".

A new word learnt at the ripe old age of 79.
Cirencester, Gloucestershire, also has a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist.
 

Tetragon213

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(My italics): Not -- in this very general "ongoing" area of England -- at Layer-de-la-Haye, Essex :smile: ? (I won't give up my day job...)
My friend, your jokes are truly on another "level"! (Don't worry, I won't give mine up either!)

Cirencester, Gloucestershire, also has a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist.
Cirencester formed a part of the escape route of Charles II to France, after the Royalists were defeated at the Battle of Worcester
 

Calthrop

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Among the titles of King Charles III : are Duke of Lancaster; and Duke of Rothesay (Argyll and Bute).
 

Calthrop

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The mention of that settlement brings back my folk-singing days of long ago..."The day we went to Rothesay-O"
I'm tempted here, to sympathise with the fleas; but as my brother never tires of telling me, I can be a bit weird.

Falkland in Fife was also created a Royal Burgh in the 15th century.
Falkland Cricket Club is reckoned to be the oldest cricket club in Fife. (I'm always a bit surprised to hear of cricket being played in Scotland at all; but admit to lacking the slightest clue as regards all and any matters of sport.) Dartford, Kent, is considered to have England's oldest continuously-existing cricket club / team.
 

Calthrop

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There is another, far less well-known and much smaller, Romford in Dorset; five miles north-west of Ringwood.
 
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Calthrop

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"Recycling" a post of mine here, from 2020: the name Crianlarich is reckoned to come from a Gaelic phrase meaning "the aspen site" (critheann = aspen). Another settlement-name featuring the same kind of tree, is Apsley, Hertfordshire -- from the Anglo-Saxon for "aspen wood".
 

Calthrop

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Clutching at straws a little bit -- Kemsley seems not to feature much, other than its paper mill ! -- there is or has been at Kemsley, a medieval fortified manor house called Castle Rough. That theme, but "toward opposite pole": at Dodington, Somerset (between Bridgwater and Watchet) there is a hotel / restaurant called the Castle of Comfort.
 

EbbwJunction1

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The Grade II* listed building Dodington Hall is in Dodington, Somerset and was built in the 15th century. A similar sounding building is Doddington Hall, which is a Victorian residence that replaced the Rectory in Doddington, Cambridgeshire.
 

Calthrop

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Mepal in Cambridgeshire was also once administered by the Hundred of Witchford.
On reading this name, my mind seemingly can't help turning to the country whose capital is Katmandu :smile: -- returning to reality: in times past, Mepal had one of England's legion of pubs called the Cross Keys. Tebay, Cumbria, still has a pub which bears that name.
 

Tetragon213

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Gloucester services, much like Tebay services (on the M5 and M6 respectively) are both regarded as being among the "nicest" service stations in the country.

Incidentally, both are owned by Westmorland group, and their third service station, Cairn Lodge, also is rated highly by road travellers.
 

Calthrop

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Gloucester services, much like Tebay services (on the M5 and M6 respectively) are both regarded as being among the "nicest" service stations in the country.
(Gloucester services has a most splendid, copiously-and-variously-stocked [if decidedly pricy] gourmet food shop.)

Gloucester holds annually, at the appropriate time of the year, a "Frightmare [IMO, ghastly -- in the other sense -- wordplay] Halloween Festival". At Cannon Hill Farm near Barnsley, South Yorkshire: there is at that season, an -- in contrast -- gentle and thoroughly nice, non-scary, variation on the Halloween theme: a Pumpkin Festival.
 
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