Settlement Association

[Calthrop]

Campbeltown (Argyll and Bute) also features in a song about the joys of alcoholic refreshment, achieved or wished-for. Respectively, In Kirkintilloch there's nae pubs (entire stock-in-trade consumed); and Campbeltown Loch ("I wish ye were whisky").

 

[D6130]

In Kirkintilloch there's nae pubs (entire stock-in-trade consumed); and Campbeltown Loch ("I wish ye were whisky").

In the case of Kirkintilloch, no stock-in-trade had been consumed because, until quite recently it was a 'dry' town....as voted for by the majority of its inhabitants under the Scottish Veto Poll legislation. Thankfully other nearby settlements were able to offer alcoholic refreshments....I remember visiting the Quarry Inn at nearby Twechar several times during the late 1970s and early 1980s. At one time Campbeltown had four distilleries and a large herring fishing fleet. Another one time herring fishing port on the West coast of Scotland is Mallaig.

 

[DerekC]

From Mallaig a Caledonian Macbrayne ferry runs to Kinloch on the island of Rȕm.

 

[D6130]

Kinloch Castle was built in the late 19th century by Lancashire textile magnate, playboy and racehorse breeder Sir George Bullough, who was born at Accrington, Lancashire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ramsbottom in Lancashire also has historical connections to the trade of calico printing.

 

[Springs Branch]

The Sunday Times judged Ramsbottom one of the best places to live in the UK in 2019.
In the following year, another north-west town to win this award was Altrincham.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Mountain Ash in Rhondda Cynon Taf also has a church that is dedicated to St Margaret.

 

[Calthrop]

In the case of Kirkintilloch, no stock-in-trade had been consumed because, until quite recently it was a 'dry' town....as voted for by the majority of its inhabitants under the Scottish Veto Poll legislation. Thankfully other nearby settlements were able to offer alcoholic refreshments....I remember visiting the Quarry Inn at nearby Twechar several times during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

I had no idea about Kirkintilloch's "dry" status; had imagined the song to be just random nonsense of the boozy kind !

Mountain Ash in Rhondda Cynon Taf also has a church that is dedicated to St Margaret.

Elaine Morgan (1920 -- 2013), writer and anthropologist -- whose greatest spell of fame was around the 1972 publication of her The Descent of Woman -- lived for a long while, in Mountain Ash. She was born in Hopkinstown, near Pontypridd.

 

[DerekC]

Hopkinstown was the scene of one of Wales' long, sad list of mining disasters, which occurred at the Great Western Colliery on 11th April 1893 and resulted in the deaths of 63 men and boys. In the worst of all, at Senghenydd on 14th October 1913, 439 miners and one rescuer died. The company and their manager were thought to have been negligent and the inquiry found that they had committed numerous breaches of the Coal Mines Act, which had been passed in 1911 partly as a result of an earlier explosion at the same colliery which had killed 81 men. The company was fined £10 and the manager £24.

 

[Calthrop]

Hunstanton, Norfolk, also has different and conflicting versions of the origin of its name.

 

[johnnychips]

One of the Wash Monsters amphibious vehicles made a trip from Hunstanton to Skegness and back a few years ago to prove it was possible.

 

[Calthrop]

More unintentional(?) comedy from Wiki, I'm afraid: often hard to resist. After link to general information about a substantially-sized settlement, Wiki routinely gives several often rather naive-sounding questions about the place (answer yielded when you click on the question). Some of such, in Wiki's "Skegness" entry, are: "Is Skegness awful? "Is Skegness tacky?" "Is Skegness any good?"

Corresponding Wiki questions concerning another Lincolnshire maritime outpost which tends to get a less-than-unanimously-good press -- Grimsby -- are: "Is Grimsby a poor area?" "Is Grimsby a nice area?" "Is Grimsby twinned with Chernobyl?" (Answer to the last: no -- that is a thing from Sacha Baron Cohen, with no basis in fact.)

 

[DerekC]

The proper name of Grimsby is Great Grimsby, to distinguish it from Little Grimsby further south.

 

[Calthrop]

And to thoroughly confuse things -- on the island of Tresco in the Isles of Scilly: the main settlements are Old Grimsby; and (somewhat arbitrarily chosen for bolding) New Grimsby.

 

[Springs Branch]

On another island, some distance to the north, Uig on Skye is also at longitude 6° 20' W.

 

[Calthrop]

The names of Uig; and Wick, Caithness: are close counterparts, both being derived from the Old Norse vik = "bay"; the Norsemen having been busy long ago, in all those northern-Scottish parts.

 

[DerekC]

Wick is the home of the distillery which produces Old Pulteney, one of my favourites. I wondered if it was the furthest north on the Scottish mainland but it isn't. Wolfburn whisky is produced at Thurso. I must try that!

 

[D6130]

Thurso is connected by bus with nearby Scrabster, which has a regular ferry service to Stromness in the Orkney Islands.

 

[Calthrop]

The poet and author George Mackay Brown (1921 -- 1996) spent the great majority of his life in Stromness. He studied at Newbattle Abbey College --at Newbattle, seven miles south-east of Edinburgh -- once a monastery, now a secular educational establishment.

 

[DerekC]

Newbattle stands on the River South Esk, the waters of which flow into the Firth of Forth at Musselburgh

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Cartmel also has a racecourse.

 

[Calthrop]

Cartmel's name is derived from Old Norse wording meaning "sandbank by rocky ground". The first word of same, essentially forms -- linguistically, more directly -- the name of Sandbanks, Dorset: outermost south-westerly suburb of Bournemouth, at the mouth of Poole Harbour; and the northern terminal of the Sandbanks vehicle ferry which provides for the most direct road route between Bournemouth and Swanage.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Lilliput in Dorset also lies on the route of the B3369 road.

 

[johnnychips]

Lilliput had early scout camps. There is a scout camp, Squirrel Wood, at Burghwallis near Doncaster.

 

[Calthrop]

The (in)famous Jeremy Clarkson, who seems to pop up all over the place; spent his childhood at Burghwallis. For some of said gentleman's education, he attended the Public School of Repton, Derbyshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Birkenhead on the Wirral also has a suffragan bishop.

 

[Springs Branch]

Halifax residents can also enjoy two sausage rolls for 99p, as both Halifax and Birkenhead have a branch of Greggs.

 

[Calthrop]

The coat-of-arms of the London Borough of Barnet also features beasts of the lion, and sheep (actually a lamb) varieties (Barnet's also has a stag).

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Saracens Rugby Club were warded the Freedom of the Borough of Barnet on 20th February 2018. The club was founded in 1876 by the Old Boys of the Philological School in Marylebone, London (which was later to become St Marylebone Grammar School.

 

[Calthrop]

The self-styled prophet Joanna Southcott (1750 -- 1814), who among other things predicted the Day of Judgement for 2004; dwelt in the last years of her life, and died, in Manchester Street, Marylebone. Her childhood was spent in Gittisham, Devon (near Honiton).