Settlement Association

[Calthrop]

With my fondness for J.R.R. Tolkien: a settlement with which he has some association, is Gedling. Around the era of World War I, he had friends in Gedling (then a deeply rural spot outside of Nottingham); he liked the people and the place, and stayed there a number of times. Before becoming a "fixture" as it were in Oxford; JRRT is recorded as spending time in / visiting numerous assorted locations in England -- this in part, to do with his World War I Army service; the majority of which was, for health-related reasons, in Britain -- this likely having some bearing on his coming through the war alive and whole. One such, was Roos -- East Riding of Yorkshire, near Withernsea.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Mappleton in the East Riding of Yorkshire was also once administered by the Holderness Wapentake.

 

[Calthrop]

Church Lench, Worcestershire -- near Evesham -- also has a church dedicated to All Saints.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Pershore in Worcestershire also lies on the route of the long-distance footpath known as Wychavon Way.

 

[Calthrop]

Cambridge is also proverbial for excellence re fruits of the plum family -- for Cambridge, it's greengages rather than plums.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs, also known as the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs (OLEM), is an English Roman Catholic parish church in southeast Cambridge. It is a large Gothic Revival church built between 1885 and 1890 by the local firm of Rattee and Kett. A much earlier project by the company was the construction of ornate tables, ceilings and urns at Wimpole Hall, a country house located within the Wimpole Estate in the civil parish of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, completed in the 1850s and 1860s.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Fingal in the province of Leinster also has a church that is dedicated to St Andrew.

 

[341o2]

Edinburgh has Hotel Fingal, Scotland's only floating hotel.
(I immediately thought of Fingal's cave, but Staffa is uninhabited)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Dumfries in Dumfries and Galloway also has a camera obscura.

 

[Calthrop]

Auldgirth in Dumfries and Galloway is also located on the River Nith.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Enterkinfoot in Dumfries and Galloway also lies on the route of the A76 road.

 

[Calthrop]

Oh, dear -- my favourite "default" nowadays: the business of small and obscure places putting up on the Net, "spreads" about "twenty things to do in..." -- usually, the "in" is very liberally interpreted -- it actually covers a radius of very many miles. Thus, one of the things to do, supposedly in Enterkinfoot: is a visit to the ice rink at Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway.

 

[341o2]

St Ives, Cornwall, also has a golf course, the oldest in the county, with stunning views of St Ives Bay and the Hayle estuary

 

[Calthrop]

Roping in memories of the book of silly verse from the 1940s, which we had in my childhood home (if only said book were still in my possession): with its "clerihews" about assorted places in Britain. One of such:

The painters of St. Ives
Lead irregular lives,
Which are not a la mode
In the Euston Road.

And another -- which as regards meaning (if any), totally baffles me:

Don't spend
Your day by the sea at Southend;
Come instead to Claygate,
Where the beach isn't blocked by James Agate.

I learn that James Agate (died 1947) was a theatre critic; from what I understand from Wiki, a fairly inoffensive soul -- his relevance in above doggerel, is totally obscure to me. And Claygate (Surrey -- bordering on south-west London) isn't on the sea at all. ??? -- maybe the versifier's objective was just an exercise in total nonsense.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The Thames Television series Never the Twain, which starred Windsor Davies and Donald Sinden as two grumpy antique dealers, used the Greek Vine restaurant (now Averna, an Italian restaurant) frontage on The Green, Claygate as the shop fronts in the early series. In the later series, they then used some shops at 10 to 12 Queen's Road, Hersham, Surrey.

 

[Calthrop]

Hersham lies on the River Mole; which rises close by Rusper, West Sussex (near Crawley).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Caverswall in Staffordshire is another settlement where once Benedictine Nuns has a religious house.

 

[John Griffiths]

Caverswall has a Catholic church dedicated to St Filumena. I haven't found any other churches with that eccentric spelling, but Winchburgh in West Lothian has a Catholic church of St Philomena.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Edinburgh is now the only section of the Union Canal to have leisure usage.

 

[Springs Branch]

Ipswich also retains a significant bus system (Ipswich Buses) owned and operated by the settlement's local government.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Hastings in East Sussex also has a Society of Friends meeting house.

 

[Springs Branch]

The TV series Foyle's War was mostly set and filmed in the vicinity of Hastings.

Several other locations around southern England were mentioned in certain episodes. An example being when Foyle's driver, Samantha "Sam" Stewart, stays with her uncle, the Rev. Aubrey Stewart, at his vicarage in Lavenham, Suffolk.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Lavenham prospered from the wool trade in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the town's blue broadcloth being an export of note. Today, it is a popular day-trip destination for people from across the country along with another historic wool town in the area, Long Melford, which is colloquially and historically also referred to as Melford.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Twydall in Kent also has a church that is dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

 

[Springs Branch]

There doesn't seem to be too much of interest in work-a-day, suburban Twydall. However hungry citizens can get a tasty meal from the Chi Chinese Takeaway.

There's another establishment trading as the Chi Take Away in Hylton Rd, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Berwick upon Tweed also featured in some of the L S Lowry paintings of the North East coastal region.

 

[Calthrop]

Berwick upon Tweed last changed hands between Scotland and England in 1482, when the future King Richard III captured it for England. This controversial monarch has also strong associations with Leicester: his base for his last campaign, finishing in his death at the battle of Bosworth; and the finding in recent years in Leicester, of the body reckoned certain to be his (underneath a car park) -- with subsequent re-burial in Leicester Cathedral.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Leicester is the setting for the fictional diaries of Adrian Mole, created by Sue Townsend. In the early books he lives in a suburb of Leicester and attends a local school where he first meets "the love of his life", Pandora Braithwaite. After a period of years spent working in Oxford and London, Mole returns to Leicester and gets a job in a second-hand bookshop and a flat in an "upmarket" development on a swan-infested waterfront, which is a barely disguised representation of the area near to St. Nicholas Circle. Vastly in debt he is forced to move to the fictional village of Mangold Parva. The local (fictional)
MP for the town of Ashby de la Zouch is his old flame, Pandora Braithwaite.

(I must confess that I've got all of this from Mr W Pedia, not having read any if the diaries myself!)

 

[Calthrop]

Crowborough (East Sussex) is also twinned with a settlement in the French departement of Loiret. Crowborough's "twin" is Montargis; Ashby's is Pithiviers. (Pithiviers is of some note for "baked goods"; and for its 600mm gauge railway, a section of which is preserved at the town. Pithiviers also has the unfortunate trait of being described in more than one account, as a quite horrible place -- high on any imaginable list of "c*** towns of France". Would be interesting to go there and see for oneself ...)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Mark Cross in East Sussex also lies on the route of the B2100 road.