Settlement Association

[Springs Branch]

Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire is also at latitude 54° 25' N.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Robin Hood's Bay is the eastern end of Alfred Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk. Tradition dictates that walkers should start the route on the beach at St Bees (the western end) by getting one's feet wet and collecting a pebble. The walk should end in a similar fashion, wetting feet and depositing the pebble on the beach at Robin Hood's Bay.

 

[D6130]

Ampleforth in North Yorkshire also has a notable Northern 'public' (i.e. private) school.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

A notable former pupil of Ampleforth College was the Scottish Peer and former racing driver John Crichton-Stuart, the 7th Marquess of Bute (1958–2021), also known as "Johnny Dumfries". His Great Great Grandfather was John Stuart, the 3rd Marquess of Bute, who was responsible for the restoration of Castell Coch (Welsh for 'Red Castle'), which became a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle above the village of Tongwynlais in South Wales.

(It's a magnificent building, and if you haven't been there, I urge you to do so!)

 

[Calthrop]

Tongwynlais's name is from Welsh ton = ley land / pasture / grassland / unploughed land; and Gwynlais, the name of a local family. Tonyrefail, some ten miles to the north-west, has a name from the same ton root, plus efail = forge: "the forge on the [ley land, etc.]".

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ynysmaerdy in Rhondda Cynon Taf also lies on the line of the River Ely.

 

[Calthrop]

Ynysmaerdy is the subject of a small jurisdictional and boundary-type oddity -- to quote Wiki, "Even though there is no direct access to the village of Llanharan, due to older parish boundaries [Ynysmaerdy] falls under the community of Llanharan". In former times -- up into the 19th century -- this kind of thing obtained on a much larger scale and in a stranger form in the north of Scotland: where the county of Cromartyshire consisted of half a dozen or so distinct parts, of various sizes, un-connected with each other and mostly existing as enclaves within or bordering on, the territory of Ross-Shire. One example of this last, was the town and immediate surrounding area of Tain (now in Highland).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Perth is another of the first-created Royal Burgh prior to 1153AD.

 

[D6130]

Aberfeldy also lies on the River Tay.

 

[Springs Branch]

John Dewar & Sons, Ltd., a whisky producer owned by Bacardi, has five distilleries in Scotland, including in Aberfeldy and Macduff, Aberdeenshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Banff in Aberdeenshire also takes part of the annual COAST Festival of the Arts in the last weekend of May.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The British naval officer Captain George Duff RN was born at Banff on 1st February 1764. He served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, and was killed by a cannonball at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21st October 1805. At the latter battle, he commanded the 74-gun Third Rate Ship of the Line HMS Mars, which had been launched on 25th October 1794 at the Royal Dockyard at Deptford.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Abingdon also lies on the line of the River Thames.

 

[D6130]

Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire - nowadays part of Milton Keynes - was also a centre of sports car manufacturing.

 

[Calthrop]

Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire - nowadays part of Milton Keynes - was also a centre of sports car manufacturing.

I've read somewhere that John Bunyan, who came from those general parts -- born in Elstow near Bedford -- in his book The Holy War (less famous than Pilgrim's Progress), set in the town of "Mansoul": used some features of Newport Pagnell, for non-spiritual details of his fictional town.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Wraysbury in Berkshire was also chosen as a site for a Benedictine nunnery in the early time period after William the Conqueror established his rule.

 

[DerekC]

The Anckerwyke Yew in Wraysbury parish, at around 1400 years old, is one of the fifty oldest trees in the UK. The oldest of all is thought to be the Fortingall Yew, in Fortingall, Perthsire. Expert opinion is that it is between 2000 and 3000 years old.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The attractive white-harled parish church of Fortingall (built 1901 – 1902), notable for its fine woodwork, is open in summer. Harling is a rough-cast wall finish consisting of lime and aggregate, notable for its rough texture. The technique of harling features in a large number of famous Scottish buildings including Clark Cottage, a residential building in the village of Port Charlotte on the island of Islay.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Kilmuir on the island of Skye also has a Museum of Island Life.

 

[Springs Branch]

Kilmuir has one of the highest proportions of its population who speak Scottish Gaelic outside the Western Isles.

The highest absolute number of Scottish Gaelic speakers (although obviously not as a proportion) currently live in the Glasgow area, where there is a Gaelic school in the district of Sandyford.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The Mitchell Library has been located in North Street, Sandyford since October 1911. It was initially established in Ingram Street in 1877 following a bequest from Stephen Mitchell, a wealthy tobacco producer, whose company, Stephen Mitchell & Son, would become one of the constituent members of the Imperial Tobacco Company. Part of the original collection came from a purchase in 1874 by Glasgow Corporation of 1,800 early books gifted to the University of Glasgow from the Glasgow philanthropist William Euing. Stephen Mitchell was born on 19th September 1789 in Ecclesmachen, Linlithgowshire (now West Lothian), into a long-established family of tobacco and snuff merchants and burghers.

 

[Calthrop]

Also born in Ecclesmachen was the Jacobite poet William Hamilton (1704 -- 1754). A poet belonging to another of Britain's Celtic nationalities, who opposed perceived English domination in the form it took in his time: was the Anglican clergyman -- a Welshman -- R.S. Thomas (1913 -- 2000) -- child of an English-speaking family, he learned Welsh in his middle years, but wrote his poetry in English. For a while in the 1940s, Thomas was curate at Hanmer, now in Wrexham County Borough.

 

[DerekC]

Hanmer is in the exclave of English Maelor, a detached part of Flintshire surrounded by Denbighshire, Shropshire and Cheshire. The largest settlement in the exclave is Overton on Dee.

 

[Calthrop]

Hanmer is in the exclave of English Maelor, a detached part of Flintshire surrounded by Denbighshire, Shropshire and Cheshire. The largest settlement in the exclave is Overton on Dee.

This is altogether a strange patch of country -- a culturally definitely English area; but which has been, from way back, in Wales ("sticking out into England"). Some of its settlements have Welsh alternative names -- not seeing a great deal of use, one would imagine. The Welsh name of Overton here, is Owrtyn; that of Penley -- half-way between Overton and Hanmer -- is Llanerch Banna.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Hanmer in Wrexham County Borough also lies on the route of the long-distance footpath known as The Maelor Way.

 

[Springs Branch]

The historic county of Flintshire was notable in having two significant detached exclaves, which persisted until the local government reorganisation of 1974.

Hanmer was located in the largest of these detached areas - English Maelor.
The second largest exclave, known as Marford-and-Hoseley, was based on the village of Marford (in today's county borough of Wrexham).

 

[Calthrop]

Marford is good for extensive views northward; one of which includes the village of Beeston, with its ruined castle set on its prominent crag in the midst of the Cheshire Plain.

 

[Springs Branch]

Anyone posting a letter to a resident of Beeston in Cheshire West (where the castle is located) should take care not to confuse the address with Beeston in Leeds, any of the villages of Beeston All Saints, Beeston Regis, Beeston St Andrew, Beeston St Lawrence (all in Norfolk), Beeston in Bedfordshire or the town of Beeston in Nottinghamshire.

 

[py_megapixel]

Boots, the pharmacy chain, is headquartered close to Beeston; their competitor Lloyds is headquartered in Coventry.

 

[D6130]

Fortrose, on the Black Isle in North-East Scotland, also has a ruined cathedral.