Settlement Association

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Fordwich in Kent also has a church that is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. (Although classified as redundant, it is still open to the public).

 

[Calthrop]

Manningtree, Essex, has a rival claim to being the smallest town in England; but a poor one, with its population at least twice that of Fordwich's 350-odd.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Bures in Suffolk also lies on the line of the River Stour.

 

[Calthrop]

(Stretching things a bit here, perhaps; but I'll chance it.) In point of fact, Bures is bisected by said River Stour, which forms the boundary between Suffolk and Essex. The village is divided into two different civil parishes: Bures St. Mary, Suffok; and Bures Hamlet, Essex. There is a certain similarity with Jonesborough, Co. Armagh: which is so very close to the Irish border -- boundary here, with County Louth in the Republic -- as to be almost on said border. Am emboldened to post this one, by the fact of the local Catholic parish's including Jonesborough, but also extending across the border into Louth.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Kilmalkedar on the Dingle peninsula of County Kerry also has an example of an Ogham Stone.

 

[Calthrop]

Kells, Co. Meath, is also reckoned to have pre-Christian, as well as Christian, spiritual associations / connotations.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Whitby in North Yorkshire is another settlement where a synod of the early Christian church was held.

 

[Calthrop]

Castleton, Derbyshire, also is / has been a source for obtaining a material in the semi-precious mineral / gem field: at Whitby, jet; at Castleton, Blue John (a type of fluorite).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Chingford in Essex also has a church that is dedicated to St Edmund.

 

[Calthrop]

Chingford has a nature reserve bearing a name which the uninitiated might consider unfortunate: Pimp Hall (said Hall, formerly residence of the Pympe family). Dounby on Mainland, Orkney, has one which might be thought similarly afflicted: The Loons and Loch of Banks.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Voe in the Shetland Isles also hosts an annual agricultural show.

 

[Calthrop]

The actress Sandra Voe; born 1936 -- in Shetland: still going strong -- began her acting career in 1966, in an episode of the TV serial Dr. Finlay's Casebook (set in the town of Tannochbrae -- which being fictional, won't do here): adapted from works by A.J. Cronin, who was born in Cardross (Clydeside -- Argyll & Bute).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Alexandria in West Dunbartonshire also lies on the line of the River Leven.

 

[Calthrop]

Alexandria's name is nothing to do with Egypt -- a relatively new settlement, it is named after Lt. Col. Alexander Smollett (died 1799). Similarly, Rhodesia, Nottinghamshire (near Worksop) has no African connection: the village -- inaugurated in 1920 -- was named after G. Preston Rhodes, the then chairman of Shireoaks Colliery.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Staveley in Derbyshire also lies on the line of the Chesterfield Canal.

 

[Calthrop]

Chester also has an official Town Crier (Staveley's was appointed in 1991).

 

[Springs Branch]

Chester is certified as a Fairtrade city.
Another Fairtrade town is Criccieth.

 

[Calthrop]

A dweller just outside Criccieth for most of the latter half of the 20th century, was Leslie Bonnet -- RAF officer, writer, and originator of a new breed of domestic duck, the Welsh Harlequin. Similarly livestock-involved, but with mammals, was the writer Monica Dickens, great-grand-daughter of Charles (M.D. has featured quite recently in another post of mine in this game): in the late 1960s she bred Goldendoodles (golden retriever / poodle cross), well before they became a big thing in the 1990s with Australian and American breeders. One of her many and varied jobs during her lifetime, was working on the Hertfordshire Express newspaper, based in Hitchin.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Arlesey in Bedfordshire also lies on the line of the somewhat strangely-named River Hiz.

 

[Calthrop]

Arlesey in Bedfordshire also lies on the line of the somewhat strangely-named River Hiz.

(Please tell us that it has a tributary -- or a bigger stream into which it flows -- called the Hurz.)


Arlesey might have been thought a place of a degree of ill-omen in World War II: in 1943 and again in 1944, aircraft on training missions from RAF Tempsford, Bedfordshire (a little way to the north) crashed in or near Arlesey, on both occasions killing the entire crew.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Many planes were lost on Mynyddoed of Wales. Edward Doylerush of CONWY wrote many books about the planes and their pilots.

 

[Calthrop]

On the quay at Conwy is the reputed smallest house in Great Britain: no longer inhabited, but open in the role of museum exhibit. A rather similar tourist attraction in Oxford, is Alice's Shop: a very small shop, part of a dwelling-house, featured unmistakably in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass -- an episode of which features interaction between Alice and the shopkeeper, who is a decidedly discourteous old sheep.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Gerald of Wales studied neither at Oxford nor CAMBRIDGE, neither had a university then. (He studied in Paris).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Sawbridgeworth in Essex also has a church that is dedicated to St Mary the Great,

 

[Calthrop]

Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII's ill-fated second wife, was granted by Henry -- when still in favour with him -- the Pishiobury (shades of W. S. Gilbert !) Estate near Sawbridgeworth. She spent a fair amount of her earlier life at Hever Castle, Kent (near Sevenoaks).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Oxted in Surrey also lies on the line of the River Eden.

 

[341o2]

Mention of Anne Boleyn and music reminds me of the comic song "With her head tucked underneath her arm" and the problems she faced when she tried to blow her nose.

Anyway, Oxted has a beer festival as does Swanage

 

[Calthrop]

Dunoon (Argyll & Bute) has in common with Swanage, that though they are on the mainland of Great Britain; the most direct access to them from "the wider world", involves a ferry crossing.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Kirn in Argyll & Bute also has a church that is dedicated to Our Lady and St Mun.

 

[DerekC]

Kirn was a calling point for the Clyde Steamers, immortalised in the song "The Day We Went to Rothesay O". (It sounds like a grand day out!):

Wan Hogmanay at the Glasgow Fair, there was me masel and several mair,

We aa went off tae hae a tear and spend the day in Rothesay o.

We wandered doon the Broomielaw, through wind and rain and sleet and snaw,

And at forty meenits aifter twa we got the length o Rothesay o.

Chorus​

Durrum a doo a durrum a day, durrum a doo a daddy o,

Durrum a doo a durrum a day, the day we went tae Rothesay o.
A sodger lad caa'd Ruglen Will, whaus regiment lies at Barrenhill,

Went off wi a tanner tae buy a gill at a public hoose in Rothesay o.

He said, “By God, I’d like tae sing.” I said, “Ye’ll nae dae sic a thing.”

He said, “Clear the flair and mak a ring and ah’ll fecht yez aa in Rothesay o.”



In search o lodgins we did slide, tae find a place where we could bide,

There was eighty fowr o us inside a single end in Rothesay o.

We aa lay doon tae tak oor ease, when somebody happened for tae sneeze,

And he waukened half a million fleas that et us alive in Rothesay o.



Some were bees, and some were bugs, and some had feet like dyers’ clugs,

And they sat on the bed and they cockit their lugs, and they cried, “Hurrah for Rothesay o.”

Ah said, “Ah think we should elope.” So we went and jined the Band of Hope,

Ah, but the polis widny let us stop another oor in Rothesay o