Settlement Association

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Historically, Owthorpe parish was in the wapentake of Bingham, a market town in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ellingham in Hampshire also has a church that is dedicated to St Mary and All Saints.

 

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St Mary and All Saints Church, Ellingham was built in the 13th century, although it is thought that there was an earlier, probably Saxon, church on the site. The church was restored between 1869 and 1890 by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, 1st Baronet RA (1835 – 1924). He also worked on many parish churches including the College Chapel at the University of Wales, Lampeter.

 

[341o2]

Lampeter has an Eisteddfod, and Llangollen hosts the country's international Eisteddfod

 

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Llangollen is on the River Dee, and hosts white water Slalom canoeing and kyaking, being host to International and UK events. These include events run by the Welsh Canoeing Association, which is also known as Canoe Wales. They manage Canolfan Tryweryn, the National Whitewater Centre near Bala, Gwynedd, where the organisation is based.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Pen-y-Bont-Fawr in Powys also lies on the route of the B4391 road.

 

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The east window of the Parish Church of St Thomas, Pen-y-Bont-Fawr has glass dating from 1855 by Hardman, Birmingham, with coloured margins, yellow quarries with leaf features. Another church with windows by Hardman is St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, Avon Dassett, Warwickshire, which date from between 1854 and 1877.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Shotteswell in Warwickshire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Banbury Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

Strange pronunciations of place-names (a British speciality? -- or does everyone do it?). Was delighted to find that the local pronunciation of Shotteswell, is "Satchel". On a par, maybe, with one of Scotland's weirdest ones: Kilncadzow, South Lanarkshire -- pronounced something like "Kill-cay-geh".

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Carluke in South Lanarkshire also lies on the route of the A721 road.

 

[Calthrop]

Major-General William Roy (1726 -- 90), generally regarded as the founding father of the Ordnance Survey, was born in Carluke. The Ordnance Survey's headquarters have long been in Southampton, Hampshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Thorney in Cambridgeshire is another settlement where Walloon Protestant refugees sought shelter in England.

 

[Calthrop]

H. Vernon Watson (1886 -- 1952) -- comedian who would have been regarded nowadays, as hideously politically incorrect (he did a lot of "blackface" stuff): was born near Thorney; and is buried in Thorney Cemetery. His stage name was Nosmo King; which he derived from a feature of a theatre in Leeds, where his comedy career took off in the early 1930s -- a joined pair of doors backstage, bearing the legend "No smoking": when the doors were not closed, there was a gap between the second "o", and the "k".

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Swillington in West Yorkshire also lies on the line of the River Aire.

 

[DerekC]

Swillington's colliery closed in 1970. It shared the name Primrose Hill with the London district north of Regent's Park.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Camden Town also lies on the line of the Regent's Canal.

 

[341o2]

TFL bus 214 links Camden Town to Highgate village

 

[D6130]

Nineteenth century novelist George Eliot (real name: Mary Ann Evans) is buried in Highgate Cemetary. She was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

 

[341o2]

Southampton also has a Sikh temple

 

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In March 2022, Southampton was shortlisted for the UK City of Culture 2025; the short-list of four, also included Bradford, County of Durham and Wrexham. However, it lost its bid, with the winner announced to be Bradford.

 

[DerekC]

Bradford had the first and last trolleybuses in Britain. Ten Bradford trolleybuses are preserved in the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft in Lincolnshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Epworth is another settlement in the Isle of Axholme area of North Lincolnshire that was affected by unrest during the 17th century draining of The Fens.

 

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As the birthplace of John and Charles Wesley, Epworth has given its name to many institutions associated with Methodism. They were the sons of Samuel Wesley, who was the Rector of Epworth from 1695 to 1735; he, in turn, was the second son of Rev. John Westley or Wesley, Rector of Winterborne Whitechurch, also known as Winterborne Whitchurch between 1658 and 1662.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

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

 

[Calthrop]

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

Has to be, one feels, high on the list of bonkers Dorset place-names; this village, and Toller Porcorum a couple of miles away, are often seen as "twins". (There is also the very small Toller Whelme.) The "Toller" element, is from the brook on which the villages lie -- formerly called the Toller, nowadays the Hooke. "Fratrum" -- Latin "of the brothers" -- derives from the settlement's having been owned in medieval times, by the religious order of the Knights Hospitaller. "Porcorum" -- Latin "of the pigs": "what or which" pigs, appears to be obscure. In former times the village was called -- in more prosaic English -- Swines Toller.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Thurso in the Highland region also has a church that is dedicated to St Peter and St Andrew.

 

[D6130]

Thurso is linked to Wick by a regular bus service that runs via John o' Groats.

 

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In the Summer, a ferry operates between John o' Groats and Burwick on South Ronaldsay in Orkney.

{On a personal note, I travelled on that ferry to the mainland many years ago. I found it very rough, and this was born out by some of the local regular travellers, who said that it was as rough a crossing as they'd had for a long while!}

 

[Calthrop]

South Ronaldsay would seem to be the southernmost inhabited island of the Orkneys; North Ronaldsay, at the opposite end of the archipelago, the northernmost -- I suppose that makes some kind of sense ... correspondingly, Burwick appears to be the southernmost Orkneyan settlement; Hollandstoun on North Ronaldsay, the most northerly.

 

[D6130]

Orkneyan

Pedant alert: 'Orcadian'!

Martin Mere, near Burscough in Lancashire, also has a bird observatory.