Settlement Association

[D6130]

New Lanark is also located on the banks of the River Clyde.

 

[Calthrop]

New Lanark was founded in 1786 as a cotton-milling "new town", by the local entrepreneur David Dale; in partnership to some extent, with his English counterpart Richard Arkwright. The latter's name coincides (not directly commemorating him as far as I know) with the former coal-mining village of Arkwright Town in N-E Derbyshire, near Chesterfield. (Arkwright Town featured recently in the "Closed Stations Journey" quiz !)

 

[DerekC]

Arkwright Town was moved to a new site in the 1990s by British Coal, because the old village was threatened by methane from old mine workings rising through the ground. Milton Abbas in Dorset was moved in the 1780s by the Earl of Dorchester because didn't like having a village in his park. (In the process it acquired a new name, having previously been called Middleton).

 

[Calthrop]

Arkwright Town was moved to a new site in the 1990s by British Coal, because the old village was threatened by methane from old mine workings rising through the ground. Milton Abbas in Dorset was moved in the 1780s by the Earl of Dorchester because didn't like having a village in his park. (In the process it acquired a new name, having previously been called Middleton).

Milton Abbas has a Tea Clipper Tea Room; along similar lines, Falmouth has a Cutty Sark Hotel.

(Two or three centuries ago, landed gentry tended to do rather a lot of this uprooting / transplanting of villages in the interests of landscaping their property. I like the "poetic justice" story of the first Earl Harcourt and his escapade of this kind, in which Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire was the victim. After the work was completed, the Earl went for a stroll around his transformed domains -- he failed to recall where the old village well had been, and fell into it and drowned.)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Perranporth in Cornwall also hosts a sea-shanty festival.

 

[Calthrop]

There is a site neat Perranporth where a butterfly species of considerable rarity -- the Silver-Studded Blue -- can be found. Another very definitely uncommon butterfly species, the Glanville Fritillary: occurs nowhere in the British Isles proper, other than the Isle of Wight. The best place to find this insect, in the proper season, is on the seaside cliffs near the village of Brook.

 

[DerekC]

On the beach near Brook you can find a "fossilised forest". There is a similar phenomenon near Lulworth in Dorset.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

East Stoke in Dorset was also once administered by the Hundred of Winfrith.

 

[Calthrop]

On the banks of the River Frome at East Stoke, two biological / conservation associations co-operate in running a research centre which studies, among other things, the problematic status of numbers of the Atlantic salmon. Another salmon-associated venue is Logierait (Perth & Kinross): near the confluence of the Rivers Tay and Tummel, which is reckoned a particularly good spot for salmon fishing.

 

[D6130]

Adam Ferguson (1723-1816), a leading figure in the 'Scottish Enlightenment' was born at Logierait. He died at St Andrews in Fife.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Glasgow also has a university that was opened in the 15th century.

 

[D6130]

Glasgow is far and away the largest settlement on the River Clyde. A smaller one is Kirkfieldbank near Lanark.

 

[Calthrop]

Much tomato-growing, in greenhouses, takes place around Kirkfieldbank. The same was true in earlier times, of the island of Guernsey: little, if any, of said cultivation takes place there nowadays. In the parish of Castel, Guernsey, there used to be a Tomato Museum -- seemingly found utterly dull and uninspiring by all who visited it. (Guernsey would seem perhaps to specialise in boring museums: it also has a Telephone Museum, about which I have never heard a good word from anyone.)

 

[Springs Branch]

Building on @Calthrop's comments and making an association based on places with quirky museums past-and-present:-

Southport has a lawnmower museum (which claims to be one of the world's leading authorities on vintage lawnmowers and archive conservation of manuscript materials concerning said equipment).

 

[Calthrop]

The boys' comic Eagle -- launched in an effort to provide more wholesome fare for said readership, than some which was then (c.1950) current -- was initially compiled and produced in Southport. Another significant centre for the production of kids' comics (tending to be less high-minded, though by no means vicious) was, for a long period, Dundee.

 

[D6130]

Dundee is/was famous for the 'three Js' - Jam, jute and journalism. Another, much smaller, Scottish town which used to be a centre for jam and marmalade production is Carnwath in Lanarkshire.

 

[Calthrop]

In the matter of folk-type songs tending to reinforce the stereotype of Scots folks' fondness for alcoholic refreshment: Carnwath is mentioned in one such, We're no' Awa' Tae Bide Awa'. Another features Wilsontown, also in South Lanarkshire:

As I cam' doun tae Wilsontown
I met wi' Geordie Scoby;
I asked him, "Wull ye hae a hauf?"
He said, "Mon, that's ma hobby".

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Apart from the song mentioned above, there doesn't seem to be much information available on the town of Wilsontown. All that I seem to be able to find is information on it's railway station (not relevant here, of course) and the Wilsontown Ironworks, which were founded by the three Wilson brothers in 1779, and operated until 1842. It was at the Wilsontown Ironworks that James Beaumont Neilson developed the first hot blast form of the blast furnace, which he patented in 1828. He was born in Shettleston on 22nd June 1792 and died on 18th January 1865, aged 72, at Queenshill, near Kirkcudbright.

 

[Calthrop]

Apart from the song mentioned above, there doesn't seem to be much information available on the town of Wilsontown. All that I seem to be able to find is information on it's railway station (not relevant here, of course) and the Wilsontown Ironworks, which were founded by the three Wilson brothers in 1779, and operated until 1842. It was at the Wilsontown Ironworks that James Beaumont Neilson developed the first hot blast form of the blast furnace, which he patented in 1828. He was born in Shettleston on 22nd June 1792 and died on 18th January 1865, aged 72, at Queenshill, near Kirkcudbright.

Also born in Shettleston -- much later -- was the thriller-author Alistair MacLean (1922 - 87); most famous probably for The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, and Where Eagles Dare. He tried during his life, a (not very successful) change of occupation, to hotelier: including running for a spell, a hotel in Wellington, Somerset.

Apologies for lumbering people with Wilsontown ! Never been there, but always had a soft spot for the place, owing to its being the terminus of a -- per the map -- odd little branch off the Caledonian Railway's main line northward to Edinburgh, from Auchengray alias Wilsontown Junction. I too, had never encountered it in any non-railway context, except for the song. Brought in, a bit of a hobby-horse of mine: occasional fanciful wondering as to whether -- in conspiracy-theory realms -- a lot of "the wilder shores" of railway enthusiasm are pure fantasy: many lines and places have never actually existed; but crazy gricers, in positions to make the fraud possible, have colluded to make the fantasy seem true. I can find it reassuring to hear of such places -- as, here, Wilsontown -- in some context which is nothing to do with railways.

 

[DerekC]

The name Wellington is much more famous in other contexts, although doubtless the Somerset town was the original. The Wellesley family acquired the title of "Duke of Wellington" after the Battle of Waterloo. Their family home was and is at Stratfield Saye, Hampshire.

 

[Calthrop]

The name Wellington is much more famous in other contexts, although doubtless the Somerset town was the original. The Wellesley family acquired the title of "Duke of Wellington" after the Battle of Waterloo. Their family home was and is at Stratfield Saye, Hampshire.

Crowthorne, Berkshire, also lies on the old Roman road westward from London to Silchester, known as the Devil's Highway. (Coincidentally, Crowthorne is the location of the independent school Wellington College -- founded and named in honour of the victor of Waterloo.)

 

[D6130]

The high-security criminal psychiatric hospital at Broadmoor is situated just outside Crowthorne. It's Scottish equivalent is situated at Carstairs (back to the Lanark/Carnwath/Wilsontown area again!)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Kilsyth in Stirlingshire is another settlement to have been made a Burgh of Barony.

 

[Springs Branch]

During 1645 Alford, Aberdeenshire, was also the location of a battle of the Scottish Civil War.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Strathdon in Aberdeenshire also lies on the line of the River Don.

 

[Calthrop]

Strathdon in Aberdeenshire also lies on the line of the River Don.

There is a contiguous village / area of the community vis-a-vis Strathdon, called Bellabeg. The Isle of Man has not one, but two, villages -- near Laxey, and near Castletown -- with the almost-identical name of Ballabeg. I'm opting for the probably better-known one: Ballabeg in the south of the island, near Castletown.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

King's Lynn was also chosen as a site for an early period Franciscan friary.

 

[Calthrop]

The Corn Exchange at Hertford is -- like the one at King's Lynn -- a regular entertainment venue.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Bengeo in Hertfordshire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Hertford Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

I always think (unjustly) of Bengeo, as though it should be one of those daft-sounding fake place names made up by someone "for a laugh": similarly to -- for example -- Sloley, Norfolk (near North Walsham).