Settlement Association

[EbbwJunction1]

Bettiscombe The parish church, dedicated to St Stephen, has two windows in the chancel and possibly one in the west tower dating from about 1400, although the rest of the structure was rebuilt by the Victorian architect John Hicks in 1862. Outside the Gorge Café in South Street, Dorchester is a stone plaque commemorating that the novelist Thomas Hardy worked as a pupil to John Hicks between 1856 and 1862. The firm was responsible for many buildings in the area and Hardy's father (Thomas senior) also worked for the firm, in 1856 undertaking repairs on Woodsford Castle in the village and civil parish of Woodsford, Dorset.

 

[341o2]

Wareham also lies on the route of the River Frome, being the highest navigable point on that river

 

[Calthrop]

Wareham has a connection with T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) -- that bloke seems to crop up everywhere, a bit like Jane Austen... in Wareham's church of St. Martin-on- the-Walls there is a recumbent effigy, in Arab costume, of Lawrence; who died not far from Wareham. Lawrence lived in infancy for a couple of years, with his parents, in Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Falkland in Fife was also created a Royal Burgh during the reign of King James II.

 

[D6130]

Linlithgow in West Lothian also has a ruined royal palace.

 

[Springs Branch]

Mary Queen of Scots was born in Linlithgow in 1542 and died in 1587 at Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Sutton Bridge in Lincolnshire also lies on the route of the long-distance footpath known as the Nene Way.

 

[Calthrop]

Sutton Bridge has connections with the naturalist / conservationist / artist Sir Peter Scott (1909 -- 89): a few miles north of S.B., where the River Nene enters the Wash, there are a pair of disused lighthouses, one each side of the river -- Scott lived in the more easterly one for while, in the years just before World War II. Another named footpath, the Peter Scott Way, runs from "his" lighthouse, eastward along the Wash coast, to the ferry crossing of the River Great Ouse opposite King's Lynn, Norfolk.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Lincoln was also the scene of anti-Semitic rioting in AD1150.

 

[Calthrop]

Ford, West Sussex, also shares the name of a U.S. President.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Kirkham in Lancashire also has a category "D" adult male prison.

 

[Calthrop]

Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, is also twinned with a settlement in the French departement of Loire-Atlantique. Kirkham's "twin" is Ancenis; Sunderland's, Saint-Nazaire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ossett in West Yorkshire also has a church that is dedicated to St Ignatius.

 

[Calthrop]

Going to be a bit naughty, perhaps, and revisit Snitterfield, Warwickshire: which featured some fifteen posts back -- technically allowable, I gather. I like "birdy" name-derivations: one of those (not the only suggested one), explains Ossett as coming from, in the old tongues, "a fold frequented by blackbirds". Snitterfield, similarly, is reckoned to mean "open field of snipe".

 

[341o2]

Snitterfield is just off the route of the A46, which also has Cheltenham on its route, here there is now a gap in the A46, traffic now uses the M5 instead

 

[Calthrop]

The parish / settlement of Norton, Gloucestershire -- including the hamlets of Prior's Norton, Bishop's Norton, and Cold Elm Norton -- is situated close to the point where the River Chelt (which appropriately, runs through Cheltenham) joins the River Severn.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Tirley in Gloucestershire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Tewkesbury Poor Law Union.

 

[johnnychips]

Mottram in Longdendale also has a church dedicated to St Michael and All Angels.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Astbury in Cheshire East was also once administered by the Hundred of Macclesfield.

 

[Springs Branch]

The local pub in Astbury is The Egerton Arms - a particularly common name for boozers in this part of the north-west on account of the ancient Egerton family (with its Ellesmere and Bridgewater - as in Duke of . . . branches).

Another Cheshire settlement with an Egerton Arms is Little Budworth.

 

[Calthrop]

We learn that in times past, Little Budworth was known as Budworth-en-le-Frith, or just Budworth-le-Frith. With Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, not hugely far away: one might assume this form of nomenclature, a speciality of this "patch" of north-west England. It turns out that the "Frith" part here, signifies "forest", via Norman-French -- nothing to do with the rabbits' deity in Watership Down .

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Thornhill in Derbyshire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Chapel-en-le-Frith Poor Law Union.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Thornhill in Derbyshire is on a number of named but unclassified roads; one of these leads to the village of Hope, Derbyshire.

 

[Calthrop]

The early-summer custom of well-dressing -- observed in a good many places in this part of England -- takes place in Hope; also, and especially renownedly, in Tissington, Derbyshire: still in the Peak District, but some way to the south.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Parsley Hay in Derbyshire also lies on the route of the footpath, bridleway and cycleway known as the Tissngton Trail.

 

[Calthrop]

Parsley Hay in Derbyshire also lies on the route of the footpath, bridleway and cycleway known as the Tissngton Trail.

I've always been charmed by the name of this place. Another settlement with an apparently herb-related name, is Sageston, Pembrokeshire -- between Tenby and Pembroke. (Actually, with the way place-names tend to work: I'd suspect that the names of neither the English nor Welsh venue, will have any herbal / cereal / botanical reference whatever !)

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The A477 runs between St Clears and Johnston in South Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire. The road passes through Sageston and a bypass off the road leads to Llanddowror, Carmarthenshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire also has a church that is dedicated to St Teilo.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Thomas Thomas was a Welsh church minister and chapel architect, also known as Thomas Glandŵr (Thomas Landore). He is described as "the first national architect of Wales" and the "unchallenged master of chapel architecture in Wales in the 1860s". He was born in 1817 and brought up near Ffairfach, just outside Llandeilo. He began designing chapels in 1848 and continued through the chapel-building boom of the 1860s and '70s, designing not only for his own Congregational denomination but for others too. He is credited with at least 119 chapels across Wales and made sure he garnered the distinction of preaching the first sermon (or one of the first sermons) at each of his new chapels. One of these was the Jerusalem Independent Chapel, Resolven, near Neath, Glamorgan, which he built in 1876.

 

[Calthrop]

There is a substantial wind farm on the hills just above Resolven. Another such -- one of the UK's largest -- is the Clyde Wind Farm near Abington, South Lanarkshire.