Settlement Association

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Manuden in Essex also lies on the line of the River Stort.

 

[Calthrop]

Manuden is one of the Hundred Parishes: which per Wiki, is an area of some 100 square miles, encompassing parts of north-west Essex, north-east Hertfordshire, and south Cambridgeshire; as per name, about one hundred parishes therein. The "100 P" has no formal recognition or status, but has the blessing of city and district authorities -- generally seen as a valuable rural area of distinctive character: the brainchild of local historian and author David Heathcliffe. A favourite, name-wise, other of mine of the Hundred Parishes is Helions Bumpstead, Essex (to say nothing of its neighbour Steeple Bumpstead).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Haughton-le-Skerne in County Durham also has a church that is dedicated to St Andrew.

 

[Calthrop]

We learn that the factual Haughton-le-Skerne, under its real name, has a slight involvement in the TV series Downton Abbey. Similarly with the Constable / Heartbeat TV series and books: with Middlesbrough featuring there as its factual self, among the fictional(ised) places.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Newton Bewley in County Durham was also once under the jurisdiction of the Stockton-on-Tees Poor Law Union.

 

[DerekC]

Low Burntoft solar farm at Newton Bewley can generate up to 5MW on a summer day. Chapel Lane solar farm at West Parley in Dorset is about ten times bigger and can generate up to 51MW.

 

[Calthrop]

In past times, much clay was extracted at West Parley, largely for brick-making: many of the bricks used in new-building of nearby Bournemouth. Also in West Dorset but the other side of Bournemouth and Poole Harbour, is Furzebrook; where clay extraction has also been a prominent activity.

 

[DerekC]

The blue pool at Furzebrook, a flooded clay pit, is a well-known Dorset beauty spot. The rock pool at Blue Pool Bay near Llangennith, South Wales, used to be less well known but following release of a video on social media is now heavily visited, with consequent heavy erosion of the access path, accompanied by littering, fly tipping and graffiti.

 

[341o2]

Pennington marshes near Lymington used to be used for salt collection once the water had evaporated, hence the term salterns. The former drying beds are now a nature reserve

 

[DerekC]

Pennington marshes near Lymington used to be used for salt collection once the water had evaporated, hence the term salterns. The former drying beds are now a nature reserve

Were there also salterns at Llangennith?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Portrush in County Antrim is another popular settlement for surfing.

 

[Calthrop]

Warrenpoint, Co. Down, is another loved-by-many seaside resort in Northern Ireland. (From the map, it appears not very "seasidy"; but per pictures of the area, it looks rather lovely.)

 

[DerekC]

In summer a foot passenger ferry will take you from Warrenpoint to Omeath in County Louth.

 

[Calthrop]

Omeath is reckoned to have been the last place in the province of Leinster, where the Irish language survived as a birth-speech. The same applies to Cregneash, Isle of Man -- near Port Erin -- and the Manx language.

 

[John Griffiths]

Beamish in County Durham also has a living history museum.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

To the south of Beamish near the town of Stanley in County Durham is the village of No Place, which is also called by some of it's residents Co-Operative Villas.

The origins of the village's unusual name are uncertain; however, theories include a shortening of "North Place", "Near Place" or "Nigh Place", or that the original houses of the village stood on a boundary between two parishes, neither of which would accept the village. The village originally consisted of four terraced houses, known as No Place. In 1937, residents of the terrace of houses to the north, known as Co-operative Villas, demolished these houses, but took on the name for their own village. Derwentshire Council tried to change the name of the village to Co-operative Villas in 1983; however, they met with strong protests from local residents at the removal of all signs pointing to No Place. Today the signs say both No Place and (at the request of some residents) Co-operative Villas.

As both names are used, I think that either can be selected as the place from which the game continues - unless the Mods think otherwise, of course, and I'll bow to the one that they choose.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Another Durham village with an unusual name is PITY ME.

 

[Calthrop]

There are conflicting /competing would-be explanations of the derivation of the name of Pity Me; one such, suggests its coming from the French "Petite Mer" = "little sea" -- from a nearby lake? An English settlement with a name definitely taken from the French, is Beaulieu, Hampshire -- originally applied, as meaning in that language, "beautiful place". (Local pronunciation, worn-down over time, is "Bewley".)

 

[DerekC]

Beaulieu in Hampshire is well known for its motor museum and for Palace House, not to be confused with the Tudor "Palace of Beaulieu", the remains of which now form part of a school called "New Hall" near Boreham in Essex.

 

[Calthrop]

Beaulieu in Hampshire is well known for its motor museum and for Palace House, not to be confused with the Tudor "Palace of Beaulieu", the remains of which now form part of a school called "New Hall" near Boreham in Essex.

Local tradition holds that on his reckonedly legendary and non-historical ride from London to York, Dick Turpin passed through Boreham, along the route of the present-day A12. (If I wished to travel from London to York, I don't think I'd go that way; but I'm not Dick.) Our anti-hero here, Mr. T., was born also in Essex: at Hempstead, between Saffron Walden and Finchingfield.

 

[DerekC]

Hempstead was the birth place and burial place of Eliab Harvey, a successful but highly controversial officer in the Royal Navy. He is best remembered for commanding the Temeraire at the Battle of Trafalgar, a ship immortalised by JW Turner in his picture of her under tow by a steam tug on the way to be broken up at Rotherhithe in 1838.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Millbank was also affected by the flooding caused by the River Thames in 1928.

 

[DerekC]

Millbank was the site of the National Penitentiary, a huge and complex building built in 1816 and for many years the place of detention for prisoners about to be transported to Australia. It was demolished in 1890 and there is very little left as a reminder except for a memorial bollard at the site of the embarkation steps. However the gateposts at Purbeck House, Swanage, Dorset are said to be from the prison. The bricks were used in many residential blocks built before the first world war by the LCC in the area nearby.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Swanage is stated as the hometown of John Cleese's character Basil Fawlty in the sitcom Fawlty Towers. The series is inspired by and set in a fictional hotel of the same name in the seaside town of Torquay on the English Riviera.

 

[Calthrop]

For the 1948 London Olympic Games, Torquay was the venue for the sailing events; and Windsor Great Park for the cycling road race.

 

[DerekC]

Windsor is on National Cycle Route 4 which also passes through Haverfordwest

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Bristol is another settlement which was affected by a 14th century plague outbreak of the Black Death.

 

[Calthrop]

Bristol is another settlement which was affected by a 14th century plague outbreak of the Black Death.

The general thesis of the sailors' song The Mermaid: is that mermaid-encounters do not presage well for one's survival, even short-term. The luckless mariners featured in the song, woefully and accurately predict -- having seen the beauteous mer-lady -- that they will never again be with their loved ones in various coastal settlements: one of which is Bristol, another Portsmouth.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Lymington also has a ferry service to the Isle of Wight.

 

[Springs Branch]

Middlewich in Cheshire also has a long history of salt production.