Settlement Association

[Calthrop]

Th eastern extremity of said A39 road: is its divergence from the national road network near Corston, Somerset -- a little way west of Bath.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Englishcombe in Somerset was also once administered by the Hundred of Wellow.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The Church of St Peter, Englishcombe, was probably built by or for Robert de Gournay in the 12th century. The church features Norman arches, and leper holes in the porch, which would have enabled lepers to hear the sermon without coming into contact with the rest of the congregation. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building. The church was given to the Cluniac Priory of Bermondsey in the London Borough of Southwark in 1112 by the Lady Hawisia de Gournay, and by the Cluniacs to the monks of Bath in 1239.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Taunton in Somerset also has a church that is dedicated to St Mary Magdalene.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Jennifer Ann (Jenny) Agutter OBE was born on 20th December 1952 in Taunton. She is probably best known for her part in two adaptations of The Railway Children (1970), but also played a significant part in The Eagle has Landed (1976). The majority of the latter film, set in the fictional village of Studley Constable, was filmed at Mapledurham in Oxfordshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Sleaford in Lincolnshire also has a working watermill with listed status.

 

[341o2]

Ibstock also has a St Denys church

 

[DerekC]

Holsworthy in Cornwall - sorry, Devon (just) - like Ibstock, has a "Blackberry Farm". (Whether they farm blackberries at either I cannot say)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

North Tamerton in Cornwall also lies on the line of the River Deer.

 

[Calthrop]

North Tamerton has the distinction of being the only parish in Cornwall which includes land "east of the Tamar" -- re geographical pedantry, more like north thereof: a small northerly protuberance past said river (and bounded to the east by the River Deer as above, which rises in Devon and meets the Tamar at North Tamerton). Similar pleasing messiness between countries, but on a bigger scale, a good way northward: the strange "sticky-out bit" of Wales, now part of the County Borough of Wrexham -- culturally thoroughly English -- called "the English Maelor", or "Flintshire Detached", and containing villages with such highly-"Cymric" names as Horseman's Green, and Penley.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

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

 

[Calthrop]

Hanmer is situated just off the A539 road. On that road, some distance to the west, is Acrefair -- which is also in Wrexham County Borough, but properly and unconfusingly Welsh !

 

[Springs Branch]

Newhaven in East Sussex also has a pub named The Hampden Arms.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Slaugham in West Sussex also lies on the line of the River Ouse.

 

[Calthrop]

The parish of Slaugham includes the delightfully-named hamlet of Pease Pottage. Another hamlet, suggesting more feast-ish fare, is in the parish of Normandy, Surrey (between Guildford and Farnham): Christmas Pie (not in fact to do with festive stuff; but from the Christmas family, who were for a long while, local magnates).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ockham in Surrey was also once under the jurisdiction of the Guildford Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

Ockham was the birthplace and "name-deriver" of William of Ockham (or Occam): 1285 -- 1347; renowned medieval philosopher, best known for the principle of "Occam's Razor"(= on the whole, it's advisable to prefer the simpler explanation to the more complicated one). Another settlement whose name has entered lore and the English language through association with a medieval learned man, is Duns (Scottish Borders). The erudite gent here, is the theologian John Duns Scotus (approx. 1265 -- 1308: broadly a contemporary of W. of O.). The "Duns" element in his name, came to feature as a calumny directed against his basically conservative theological stance, by 16th-century proponents of Renaissance humanism: whereby there came into being the word "dunce", for someone perceivedly not very bright.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Edzell in Angus is another settlement with an Iron-Age hillfort within its environs.

 

[Calthrop]

The horticultural scientist Sir William Gammie Ogg (shades of Terry Pratchett !), 1891 -- 1979 (born near Aberdeen): retired to, and died in, Edzell. From 1943 on, he was Director of the Rothamsted agricultural research station at Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

 

[341o2]

Malvern also has a Plough and Harrow pub

 

[DerekC]

The Telecommunications Research Establishment, responsible for much of WWII British radar development, was based at Malvern. Before that it was based at Worth Matravers in Dorset but was considered to be too close to the coast and vulnerable to a German raid.

 

[Springs Branch]

Fans of Doctor Who (one of whom I am not) will remember many episodes filmed in abandoned quarries and gravel pits. One of these was the Winspit quarry at Worth Matravers. Another Doctor Who filming location in Dorset was St Bartholomew's Church at Shapwick.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Gussage St Michael in Dorset was also once under the jurisdiction of the Wimborne and Cranborne Poor Law Union.

 

[DerekC]

The southern end of the Dorset Cursus lies in the parish of Gussage St Michael. The cursus runs for over six miles across the chalk downs of Cranborne Chase. It consisted when built in about 3000BC of two parallel banks and ditches running about 80m apart in a roughly straight alignment south west to north east. The northern end of the cursus lies in the parish of Pentridge, Dorset. Its purpose is unknown, although it is assumed to have had ceremonial or ritual significance.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Mr W Pedia tells us that the civil parish of Pentridge is no more, as it was abolished on 1st April 2015, when it was merged with Sixpenny Handley
to form the parish of Sixpenny Handley and Pentridge.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Fontmell Magna in Dorset was also once administered by the Hundred of Sixpenny Handley.

 

[Calthrop]

Somebody -- could well have been John Betjeman -- wrote a light-hearted poem "riffing" on weird and wonderful Dorset village names; and of course including a Thomas Hardy reference. The refrain was something to the effect of (have chosen bolded name at random): "Where Ryme Intrinseca, Fontmell Magna, Toller Porcorum, Melbury Osmond...lie in Mellstock churchyard now". ("Mellstock" is Hardy's fictionalised version of the Bockhamptons, near Dorchester.)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Athelhampton in Dorset was also once under the jurisdiction of the Dorchester Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

Dorset seems to suffer from some kind of compulsion for its village names to be, in various ways, complicated. Athelhampton is sometimes called, alternatively, Adminston or Admiston. Differing from the last by just one letter is Admaston, Shropshire -- now effectively part of Telford New Town.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Royal Leamington Spa is another settlement with natural saline springs.