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Settlement Association

EbbwJunction1

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The Hundred Parishes is an area of the East of England with no formal recognition or status, albeit that the concept has the blessing of county and district authorities. Wicken Bonhunt is one of them; the village of Wyddial in East Hertfordshire is another.
 
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Calthrop

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The Hundred Parishes is an area of the East of England with no formal recognition or status, albeit that the concept has the blessing of county and district authorities. Wicken Bonhunt is one of them; the village of Wyddial in East Hertfordshire is another.

Somersham, Cambridgeshire -- near St. Ives -- also lies on the Prime or Greenwich Meridian.
 

Calthrop

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Pubs again -- but that at Pidley about to be referred to, is one which I have seen with my own eyes. Pub's name, the Mad Cat -- reckoned the only one in Britain with that name. On "feline pub names", though: the pub at Charlton St. Peter, Wiltshire -- near Devizes -- is called the Charlton Cat.
 

EbbwJunction1

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Stibb Green is just off the A346 road, which runs north from Ludgershall to Chisleldon, just outside Swindon. North of Stibb Green, the road runs adjacent to the hamlet of Ogbourne Maizey, near Marlborough.
 

Calthrop

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Ogbourne Maizey lies (as do a couple of other "Ogbournes") perhaps unsurprisingly, on the River Og (which joins the River Kennet at Marlborough). The source of the Og is at Draycot Foliat, Wiltshire: some four miles north of Ogbourne Maizey.
 

Calthrop

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The hamlet of Bushton in the parish of Clyffe Pypard, has a pub called the Trotting Horse. There is a pub with a decidedly similar name -- the Trotting Mare -- at Knolton in the County Borough of Wrexham (just -- the pub is in Wales, but its car park is in England). And this gets us out of Wiltshire (delightful county though it is) !
 

Calthrop

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Erbistock Hall, near the village, has a notable topiary garden. There is another such at Balmoral Cottage, near Benenden, Kent.
 

Calthrop

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Quoting Wiki: "Popular etymology has it that a thousand Christians were martyred in Lichfield around 300 AD during the reign of Diocletian -- thus Lichfield = 'field of the dead'. There is no evidence to support this, as with many folk etymologies." Better attested, is the name of St. Albans, Hertfordshire -- after the first British saint, Alban; who lived there, and was martyred during persecutions in the early Christian era.
 

Calthrop

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In 1944, U.S. General George S. Patton delivered a stirring address to the troops at St. Michael's Church, Stourport. Earlier in that year, those in military command in Britain performed a large-scale "disinformation" operation to persuade the Germans that the coming Allied invasion of the Continent, would come ashore near Calais (not Normandy, the real target). The German military held Patton in some fear and respect: part of the "scam" involved persuading the enemy that he would lead the invasion force -- he was thus directed to keep a low profile in Britain; with fake info aimed at the Germans, to the effect that he was in Dover, preparing for his invasion role.
 

Calthrop

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Guildford has a namesake town in the US state of Connecticut -- genuinely named after the Surrey town, though it's rendered "Guilford" -- as we know, Yanks can't spell, or pronounce :E ! Connecticut has also a town with the name of, and "as", Wallingford, Oxfordshire -- this one correctly spelt.
 

Calthrop

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The painter L.S. Lowry (1887 -- 1976) painted in 1947 -- off his usual "beat" -- a picture: A Street in Northleach. Lowry lived for the greater part of his life in Pendlebury, Greater Manchester -- scenes wherein, inspired (seemingly a long and slow "take-off" process) his fascination with and concentrating on, Northern industrial themes.
 

Calthrop

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Blackley in Greater Manchester also lies on the line of the River Irk.

Stretching things a bit desperately: the renownedly un-politically-correct comedian Bernard Manning (1930 -- 2007) lived in his youth, in Blackley. His ancestral roots were a mixture of Irish Catholic and Russian Jewish: re the latter he claimed that his paternal grandfather, who migrated to Britain, came originally from Sebastopol in the Crimea. A settlement (near Pontypool) in the County Borough of Torfaen, Gwent: is named Sebastopol -- founded in the 1850s, and named after the aforementioned East European city, which had significant involvement in the Crimean War.
 

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