Settlement Association

[D6130]

Aldershot may be known to Southerners as "The Home of the British Army", but to most Northerners - and especially Yorkshire folk - that honouir goes to Catterick in North Yorkshire.

 

[Springs Branch]

Dere Street, a Roman road, ran from York (Eboracum) via Catterick (Cataractonium) and terminated at its greatest extent on the shores of the Firth of Forth at a fort named Veluniate - today's town of Borrowstounness (commonly known as Bo'ness).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ayr also has historical connections with saltmaking.

 

[Calthrop]

There used to be, close to Ayr -- at Heads of Ayr -- the only Butlin's Holiday Camp in Scotland (now active "under new management"). The island of Ireland's only Butlin's Holiday Camp was at Mosney, Co. Meath -- now defunct as a holiday camp.

 

[Springs Branch]

Chorley in Lancashire is also at latitude 53º 39' N.

 

[Calthrop]

St. Albans is also twinned with a city in Hungary. Chorley's "twin" is Szekesfehervar; St. Albans's, Nyiregyhaza.

 

[DerekC]

St Albans was built close to, but not actually on, the site of the Roman city of Verulamium. Similarly the village of Silchester, Hampshire, was built close to the site of Calleva Atrebatum.

 

[Calthrop]

The titled Anglo-Irish Pakenham family -- most renowned recent member thereof, that late famously eccentric "man of parts" Lord Longford -- have strong links with Silchester. Their seat in Ireland is Tullynally Castle, near Castlepollard (Co. Westmeath).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Killaloe in County Clare is another location of an Irish neolithic ringfort.

 

[Calthrop]

Killaloe has an adjacent "counterpart" town: Ballina, on the other side of the River Shannon in Co. Tipperary (a bridge links the two). The latter settlement has a namesake further north: Ballina, Co. Mayo.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Foxford in County Mayo also lies on the line of the River Moy.

 

[D6130]

Foxford is famous for its woollen mills, which have been producing high quality blankets since 1892. The mills were founded by Sister Agnes Bernard, a Catholic nun, who was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire in 1842.

 

[Calthrop]

Also born in Cheltenham, in 1902, was the actor Ralph Richardson. He served as a naval aviator in Word War II; was stationed for a while at Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire.

 

[D6130]

Lee-on-the-Solent was formerly home to a Royal Naval Air Station....as was Lossiemouth in Scotland.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Paddockhaugh in Moray also lies on the line of the River Lossie.

 

[Calthrop]

Adjoining Paddockhaugh is Cloddach, where sand-quarrying is carried out on a considerable scale. The same material is also quarried at Middleton, Norfolk (near King's Lynn).

 

[Springs Branch]

An unexploded World War 2 grenade was discovered in Middleton in 2010 and had to be destroyed by bomb disposal experts.

A rather larger WW2 bomb was found and deliberately detonated earlier this year in Exeter.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Chichester in West Sussex is another settlement that has both a cathedral and a ship canal.

 

[Springs Branch]

Chichester is the county town of West Sussex.
East Sussex's county town and administrative centre is Lewes.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Evesham in Worcestershire was also the site of a battle that was fought in the 13th century Second Baron's War.

 

[Calthrop]

Book-of-Genesis-related thoughts; the name of Evesham is nothing to do with the first woman or any namesake -- it is reckoned to commemorate the town's 8th-century founder, a swineherd named Eof, in the service of Bishop Egwin of Worcester: Eofs ham = the dwelling of Eof. However, Adamstown, Co. Wexford -- midway between Wexford and New Ross -- is called after an Adam, though not the biblical one: Adam Devereux, who built a castle there in 1418.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Pádraic Delaney (born on 6th November 1977 in Adamstown) is an Irish actor known for playing Teddy O'Donovan in the Ken Loach film The Wind That Shakes the Barley for which he earned an IFTA nomination. It is a 2006 war drama film set during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) and the Irish Civil War (1922–1923). The film was shot in various towns within County Cork during 2005, including Balleyvourney and Timoleague.

 

[Calthrop]

In the medieval era of English "colonisation" of Ireland, Timoleague and most of the adjacent countryside belonged for a while to the Hodnett family from Shropshire: who one feels must have originated from Hodnet near Market Drayton. In the 13th century, Timoleague and environs were taken by force of arms from the Hodnetts, by the Barry family.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The four-mile long Hodnet bypass (the A53) was opened in 2003 at a cost of £14 million, taking traffic on the old A53 and A442 roads away from the village's narrow streets. It was built by the contractors Alfred McAlpine plc who have their headquarters in Hooton, Cheshire.

 

[Calthrop]

John Owen, clergyman and gifted chess player -- chess master, in fact -- was vicar of Hooton between 1862 and 1900. He was born in Marchington, Staffordshire (near Uttoxeter).

 

[DerekC]

Marchington is very close to the River Dove, which rises on the slopes of Axe Edge near Flash, Derbyshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Hulme End in Staffordshire also lies on the line of the River Manifold.

 

[DerekC]

Much Wenlock, Shropshire, also has a café called "The Tea Junction"

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Malvern in Worcestershire also has a church that is dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

 

[Calthrop]

In the 1620s and '30s, a degree of civil disturbances came about in the Malvern area, owing to moves by King Charles I to sell off royal forest lands in which locals had had certain "commons" rights. There were similar occurrences at the time around Feckenham, also in Worcestershire.