Settlement Association

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Llanfachraeth in Anglesey also lies on the route of the long-distance footpath known as the Anglesey Coastal Path.

 

[Springs Branch]

Llanfachraeth is adjacent to the Beddmanarch–Cymyran Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) - important for both its coastal botanical features and ornithological interest e.g. its use by many species of overwintering birds.

Deadman's Grave, Icklingham is also a SSSI comprising rare plants and is a breeding ground for rare birds (stone curlews). It is located in the vicinity of Icklingham in Suffolk.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Prickwillow in East Cambridgeshire also lies on the line of the River Lark.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The B1104 minor road begins at Prickwillow and crosses the Fens before ending at Chippenham, Cambridgeshire.

 

[DerekC]

Chippenham has a Greene King pub called the Tharp Arms. Greene King claims to be the UK's biggest pub operator so I wondered how widely distributed their pubs were. Turns out they own Belhaven Brewery, based in Dunbar, and they have pubs as far north as the Granary in Elgin, Moray.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Moray RFC were established in 1923 and play their home matches at Morriston Playing Fields, Moray in the Caledonia North Two Division. One of their opponents are Mackie Academy RFC, who are based at the Redcloak ground in Stonehaven.

​

 

[Calthrop]

According to some, that celebrated Scottish ?delicacy ?horror the deep-fried Mars Bar, originated at the Haven Fish Bar in Stonehaven. There is a fish-and-chip shop in Wantage, Oxfordshire, in which from time to time, deep-fried Mars Bars have been among the things that one might purchase -- or so I'm told by my brother, who worked for a time in that town.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Lincoln also has a church that is dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul.

 

[Calthrop]

There is a parallel between Lincoln, and Douglas (Isle of Man): in that each has an Australian "namesake settlement", plus the prefix "Port". Port Lincoln is in South Australia; Port Douglas, in Queensland.

 

[D6130]

St Helier is also the capital of a British Crown Dependency.

 

[DerekC]

There is a statue of King George II in the centre of St Helier and it is the location from which all distances by road on Jersey are measured. There used to be a statue of the same monarch on St Stephen's Green in Dublin but it was blown up by nationalists in 1937.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Mullingar in County Westmeath also lies on the line of the Royal Canal.

 

[Calthrop]

Lough Derravaragh near Mullingar is associated with the sad Irish legend of the Children of Lir -- as are the Straits of Moyle between Ireland and Scotland: near Ballycastle, Co. Antrim.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Dunquin in County Kerry also has a ferry service to an offshore island.

 

[Calthrop]

Dunquin is claimed to be the most westerly settlement of Ireland and of Eurasia (our Spanish and Portuguese friends might dispute that). Lowestoft is the most easterly settlement of the British Isles.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Aberdeen also has a maritime museum.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Aberdeen University Shinty Club (Scottish Gaelic:Club Camanachd Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is the oldest constituted shinty club in the world, dating back to 1861. The team plays its home games at Balgownie in the Aberdeen suburb of Bridge of Don.

 

[Calthrop]

Falling back on name-similarities: some forty miles south-west of Bridge of Don, there is a settlement with a name which differs by just one letter: Bridge of Dun, Angus.

 

[341o2]

Bridge of Dun has House of Dun as does Montacute Somerset has Montacute House

 

[Calthrop]

Macabre-and-nasty department: the last incidence (early 18th century?) of gibbeting alive of a malefactor -- enclosed in a metal cage and left to die of hunger and thirst -- was carried out at Montacute, on the "highwayman" Richard Foister. The long-standing punishment for high treason -- hanging, drawing and quartering -- was reckonably last carried out with full rigour, in 1681: the victim -- widely considered to have been mistakenly accused -- Oliver Plunkett, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Schull in County Cork also has a planetarium.

 

[Calthrop]

The author and television producer Daisy Goodwin tells in her book Silver River, of efforts by her great-great-great-grandfather Robert Traill -- Church of Ireland Rector of Schull -- to help the populace in the disastrous famine of the 1840s. Ms. Goodwin studied at Trinity College, Cambridge.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Shrewsbury is another settlement that was afflicted in medieval times by sweating sickness.

 

[Calthrop]

Shrewsbury is the location of a much-loved series of murder-mystery "detective before detectives were invented" novels -- the Brother Cadfael books by Ellis Peters: the sleuth here, being a 12th-century Benedictine monk at Shrewsbury Abbey. Many other writers have embarked on this particular "bandwagon": including the extremely prolific Edward Marston, who has written and had published, literally scores of murder-mystery novels set in an assortment of different eras (including a series involving 19th-century British railways). One of Marston's series, is a "medieval 'tec" one, where the investigators are a team of compilers of William the Conqueror's Domesday Book -- who somehow keep encountering puzzling murders wherever they go in England. One novel of this series, is set in Gloucester. (My personal opinion of this series of Marston's, is not very high -- competently-enough done, but rather dully plodding: I find Ellis Peters's style much superior.)

 

[D6130]

Leicester is another English city that has a variety of cheese named after it.

 

[Calthrop]

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey -- Henry VIII's "sidekick" in the early years of his reign -- died in AD 1530, at Leicester: this likely saving him from a highly-unpleasant confrontation with his sovereign, angry with him for his proving unable to achieve an annulment of Henry's marriage with Katherine of Aragon. Wolsey was born, in fairly humble circumstances, in Ipswich.

 

[D6130]

Erskine in Renfrewshire also has a large concrete box girder road bridge straddling a river estuary.

 

[Calthrop]

"The refuge of the desperate" -- Erskine has a namesake settlement in the State of Minnesota, USA. So has Rochester, Kent.

 

[341o2]

Rochester had one of the country's earliest schools as York had the Minster school and St Peter's school

 

[Calthrop]

In 2018, the Sunday Times deemed York to be its overall "best place to live in Britain". At the other extreme, iLiveHere.co.uk has recently voted Peterborough as this country's worst place to live. (I lived for a while in Peterborough, way back; and reckoned it OK. An improvement anyway on, say, Mogadishu ...)