Settlement Association

[Calthrop]

Abernethy's pub is called -- common-sensically, and minimising racking of brains -- just "The Inn". One feels that this pub name will have few exact counterparts in Britain; but hostelries called "The Inn at ...", are legion. One such is "The Inn at Welland" (Worcestershire, south of Great Malvern).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Wick Episcopi in Worcestershire was also once administered by the Hundred of Oswaldslow.

 

[Calthrop]

Wick Episcopi in Worcestershire was also once administered by the Hundred of Oswaldslow.

A number of settlements in England bear thus in their names, the suffix "Episcopi" (Latin -- "of the bishop") -- usually, because of the manor's having been held in times past, by a particular bishopric. Another such is Huish Episcopi, near Langport in Somerset.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Fitzhead in Somerset was also once administered by the Hundred of Kingsbury.

 

[Calthrop]

I find that the name "Fitzhead" is to do neither with the son of someone named Head; nor requirements for hats; but derives from the Anglo-Saxon for "five hides" -- a "hide" being an area-measurement unit from those times (five hides = approx. 600 acres). Mental leading thence, to the Anglo-Saxon document with a name which I find enchanting -- the Burghal Hidage: concerning the roll-call of fortified towns (burhs) and the taxes -- assessed in terms of area of land owned, expressed in "hides" -- to maintain them. One of the "burhs" listed therein, is Cricklade, Wiltshire.

 

[John Griffiths]

Cricklade is the first downstream town on the Thames. The first completely* downstream town on the tidal Thames is Twickenham.

*there is a bit of Teddington downstream of the eponymous lock.

 

[johnnychips]

Of course, Murrayfield, in Edinburgh also has an international rugby ground. It is indeed a place, not just the name of the ground.

 

[Calthrop]

On the far side of central Scotland's narrow middle: the A8 road, which runs through Murrayfield, reaches its western end at Greenock, Inverclyde.

 

[John Griffiths]

Greenock is the home town of John McGeoch, guitarist with Siouxsie and the Banshees; Siouxsie Sioux (nee Susan Ballion), lead singer of said band, was raised in Chislehurst, SE London.

 

[Calthrop]

The exiled French Emperor Napoleon III, and his wife Empress Eugenie and son the Prince Imperial; lived at the house Camden Place in Chislehurst, from 1871 onward. All are now buried at St. Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire; with for the Emperor (died 1873) and the Prince (died 1879), an intervening spell of interment at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Chislehurst. After their deaths, Eugenie founded the abovementioned abbey; doing so partly in memory of her deceased menfolk.

 

[DerekC]

Farnborough is well known to be the site of RAE, the Royal Aircraft Establishment (now disappointingly just part of the Defence Research Agency). In WWII RAE also controlled the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at Helensburgh in Scotland.

 

[D6130]

John Logie Baird, the inventor of television, was born in Helensburgh on 13th August 1888. He died at Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex on 14th June 1946.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ashburnham in East Sussex was also once under the jurisdiction of the Battle Poor Law Union.

 

[Springs Branch]

One of the thoroughfares in Ashburnham is named 'Brown Bread Street' - seemingly a unique name for a road in Britain.

Although not quite specifically the brown variety, there is another 'Bread Street' with mediaeval origins just below the castle in Edinburgh.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Nottingham also has a modern tramway system.

 

[John Griffiths]

Nottingham's nineteenth century boulevards arguably form the first ring road in Britain. The first by-pass was the New Road in London of 1756, avoiding built up areas but passing through Paddington, Marylebone and Pentonville.

 

[Calthrop]

I'm going to go for Gilbert's Bab Ballads again. There is one, involving a wandering minstrel who thinks he has encountered a hapless maiden in durance vile; but then discovers that "Of gloomy Pentonville [prison] / This is the female side". (Don't know if Pentonville has ever held women prisoners; but old W.S. never lets boring facts get in the way of a good ballad.) Another such offering, concerns an English and a French champion performing feats of strength from opposite sides of the Channel; it takes place at Dover.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Cromarty in Highland is another settlement that gives its name to a sea area in the shipping forecast.

 

[Calthrop]

We gather that Ian Rankin, author of thrillers and creator of Inspector Rebus, has a secluded dwelling in Cromarty to which he repairs in order to write. Rankin was born in Cardenden, Fife.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Auchterderran in Fife also lies on the line of the River Ore.

 

[John Griffiths]

The auchter in Auchterderran is believed to derive from urchan, the meaning of which is obscure. The auchter of nearby Auchtermuchty, however, is from the Gaelic uachdar, upland.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Pittenweem in Fife was also created a Royal Burgh during the reign of King James V.

 

[John Griffiths]

Pittenweem has a sacred cave associated with St Fillan, a sixth century monk, who evangelised in the area around Aberdour, also in Fife, and where the parish church is dedicated to him.

 

[D6130]

Aberdour Castle - parts of which date back to the eleventh century - is thought to be one of the two oldest castles still standing in Scotland. The other one is Castle Sween/Caisteal Suibhne, near the village of Achnamara on the West Coast of Argyll.

 

[Calthrop]

Achnamara lies in the area of Argyll and Bute, called Knapdale; into which in recent years, under official aegis, Eurasian beavers have been reintoduced. Reintroduction of the same species has also been undertaken pretty much at the opposite end of Great Britain -- on the River Otter in East Devon; there is a particularly good chance of seeing them there, around the village of Otterton.

 

[John Griffiths]

Unnecessarily confusing, that. Couldn't' t they have released the beavers at Beverley? Anyway, Otterton is linked by Stagecoach route 157 to Sidmouth.

 

[Calthrop]

(Or wolves at Wolferton, Norfolk? -- it seems likely that the King, a keen wildlife fan, would approve...)

Sidmouth appears -- suitably "adapted and distorted", but recognisable -- as "Stymouth" in The Tale of Little Pig Robinson by Beatrix Potter. The same author of course features Gloucester, as itself, in her story of the Tailor thereof.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Loughborough in Leicestershire also has a bell foundry.

 

[John Griffiths]

Dudley also has a cinema designed by Archibald Hurley Robinson

 

[Calthrop]

Colwyn Bay, Conwy County Borough, also has a zoo -- the Welsh Mountain Zoo.