Settlement Association

[DerekC]

Fortrose was the reputed home of the Brahan Seer, a supposed 17th Century prophet. Seer Green in Buckinghamshire appears, disappointingly, to have nothing to do with prophecy.

 

[py_megapixel]

Seer Green has a Holy Trinity Parish Church built in 1846. Another church of the same name, built in the same year, exists in Rainow, Cheshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Keswick also hosts a Fell Race in its environs.

 

[Calthrop]

Maldon, Essex, also has a Moot Hall.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Chelmsford in Essex also lies on the line of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation.

 

[Calthrop]

Charles Dickens would seem not to have been a fan of Chelmsford; as a young man on a journalistic assignment there, annoyed at finding himself unable to buy a newspaper there on a Sunday: in a letter to a friend, he described the town as "the dullest and most stupid place on earth". Dickens lived later in his life -- and died at -- Gad's Hill Place at Higham, Kent (near Rochester).

 

[DerekC]

Higham is at what is now the head of the Thames and Medway Canal, which used to pass through the Higham and Strood Tunnels to Strood, Kent. (We won't mention the form of transport that now occupies the tunnels for fear of contravening thread rules).

 

[D6130]

Strood is the location for one of the largest winter quarters sites for travelling showmen - funfair and circus operators - administered by the Showmens' Guild of Great Britain. The Guild's head office is in Staines, Surrey (formerly Middlesex).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Uxbridge in Middlesex also lies on the line of the River Colne.

 

[D6130]

Slaithwaite - pronounced 'Slawit', in West Yorkshire, lies on the line of a different River Colne.

 

[Springs Branch]

-- deleted --

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Kirkburton in West Yorkshire was also once administered by the Upper Division of the Agbrigg Wapentake.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Kirkburton has a rapier dance team, who perform traditional longsword dances each New Year's Day at pubs in the villages of Kirkburton and Highburton in addition to their numerous appearances at festivals elsewhere in the country. Rapier dancing was a tradition in the village up to the beginning of the 20th century, and was revived in 1974. The team adhere to what is largely believed to be the original dress of clogs, blue waistcoats and trousers with ribbons down the side.

 

[Calthrop]

Godmanstone, Dorset (between Dorchester and Cerne Abbas) also has a pub called the Smiths' Arms.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Winterborne Steepleton in Dorset was also once under the jurisdiction of the Dorchester Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

Winterborne Steepleton in Dorset was also once under the jurisdiction of the Dorchester Poor Law Union.

The first word of the above-bolded's name, derives from its lying on a winterbourne: a stream which dries up in the summer months. The River Lavant -- which rises on the southern edge of the South Downs and passes through Mid Lavant, Sussex, reaching the sea near Chichester -- is a winterbourne.

 

[DerekC]

The Lavant Drum, a cylindrical object carved from hard chalk and thought to be of Neolithic origin, was found in 1993 in an archaeological excavation. The only other objects like it are the three Folkton Drums, found in 1889 during a Victorian excavation of a neolithic barrow near Folkton in North Yorkshire. The Lavant drum is worn and apparently undecorated. The Folkton Drums are decorated with stylised human faces and geometric patterns. It isn't clear what they were used for, although some sources suggest they were for measuring cord because the circumferences are exact multiples of the "neolithic foot".

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway also has a church that is dedicated to St John the Evangelist.

 

[Calthrop]

Moffat was a notable centre of the wool trade: this being commemorated by a statue of a ram (oddly, without ears), dating from the 1870s, in the town market place. There's a similar situation -- celebrating wool riches in times past -- re Calne, Wiltshire; which has much more modern statues of a sheep and lamb -- seemingly, with full complement of ears.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Orphir in Orkney also had almshouses built within its environs.

 

[DerekC]

John Rae, explorer of the Canadian Arctic, was born in 1813 at the Hall of Clestrain in Orphir parish. His success was based on copying the survival techniques of the native inhabitants of the Arctic, which others had been too proud to do. He discovered the last link in the Northwest Passage and also important clues to the fate of the earlier Franklin Expedition which failed to achieve the same goal. Because the truth of starvation and cannibalism did not fit with the heroic end for her husband imagined and being promoted by Lady Franklin in London society, John Rae's achievements did not receive the recognition that they should have done within his lifetime. He died in Kensington but is buried in Kirkwall cathedral.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Prestonpans in East Lothian also has a Mercat Cross.

 

[Calthrop]

Prestonpans -- together with the nearby settlements of Cockenzie, Port Seton, and Longniddry -- is twinned with Barga in Tuscany, Italy. Also twinned with a Tuscan town (Lucca) is Abingdon in Oxfordshire.

 

[Springs Branch]

Morland's Ock Street brewery in Abingdon formerly brewed Old Speckled Hen, along with other beers.
Following purchase by Greene King, the Abingdon brewery was closed and production moved to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.

 

[Calthrop]

Morland's Ock Street brewery in Abingdon formerly brewed Old Speckled Hen, along with other beers.
Following purchase by Greene King, the Abingdon brewery was closed and production moved to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.

Feeling, with making this post, a bit at risk of making us seem over-preoccupied with matters of alcoholic refreshment -- however; among its goodly number of pubs, Bury St. Edmunds has one called the Greengage: which seems that it might well be a unique pub name in Britain. A somewhat commoner name for such premises, though, is Greengate: seeming particularly favoured in the North-West -- Rochdale has a pub of that name.

(Old Speckled Hen has a grand taste; but it would appear that it always has a disagreeable internal-type effect on me.)

 

[DerekC]

Production of the BBC TV school drama Waterloo Road was based in Rochdale for the first seven series. After that production moved to Greenock, Renfrewshire.

(I had noticed that Old Speckled Hen wasn't quite the beer it used to be. Probably because it is now brewed by Greene King!)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Peterhead in Aberdeenshire historically was another of the Scottish whaling ports.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Peterhead RFC plays at the Lord Catto Playing Fields, Peterhead and are currently in the Caledonia League North Division Four. One of their opponents are Turriff RFC, who play at The Haughs Showground in Turriff, Aberdeenshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Grantown-on-Spey in the Highland Council Region also hosts an agricultural show.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The current Inverallan Parish Church (Church of Scotland) is located on Mossie Road, Grantown-on-Spey.It was rebuilt on the site of several earlier churches to a design by the architect Alexander Smith Cullen in 1886. A later, secular, building where Alexander Smith Cullen and his partners were responsible for remodelling works in 1902 was The Rowan Tree Inn, Uddingston, Lanarkshire.