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Settlement Association

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Calthrop

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Haccombe is reckoned possibly the smallest (in area) parish in England. The largest such is considered to be Stanhope, County Durham, in Weardale.
 
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The incumbent of the parish church of St Blaise at Haccombe is termed an archpriest, possibly the only one in the Church of England (sadly, I could not find another example). However, Milton, near Abingdon in what is now deemed Oxfordshire (Berkshire up to 1974) also has a church dedicated to St Blaise, patron saint of throat disorders.
 
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Glasgow also has petrified tree stumps on display, at the Fossil Grove in Victoria Park. Glasgow's stumps are in situ, whereas Stanhope's were found in a nearby quarry and moved to the vicarage wall (an extra one going to what is now the Great North Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne).
 

Calthrop

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The Ulster-born poet Louis MacNeice (1907 -- 1963), commences his to me highly-atmospheric poem Carrickfergus (where his childhood was spent):

"I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries,
To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams;
Next to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim,
Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud that jams
The little boats ..."
 
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D6130

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Clontibret hit the headlines in Ireland in 2008, when small deposits of gold were discovered nearby. Later - in 2016 - larger deposits of the precious metal were discovered in the vicinity of Dungarvan, Co Waterford.
 

Calthrop

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The oldest building in Trethomas, prior to its controversial demolition in 2021, was the Tyn-y-Pwll Inn: which was known locally as the "Pyke" -- corruption of "turnpike"; from its having been, before becoming an inn, a toll-house on a road of that kind. Middlewich, Cheshire, still has a pub called the Turnpike.
 

D6130

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Saltcoats in North Ayrshire was also formerly a centre for the production of salt....although in this case form the evaporation of encaptured sea water, rather than from the mining of rock salt.
 

Calthrop

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Born in Saltcoats in 1943: the gentleman referred to in an unfortunate typo in text of the relevant Wiki item, as "the popular football", Bobby Lennox. Another Lennox, celebrated in another sphere of activity: is the singer / songwriter / political campaigner Annie Lennox, born 1954 in Aberdeen.
 

EbbwJunction1

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The tower of St Giles' Parish Church, Wrexham appears in an 18th-century rhyme, as one of the Seven Wonders of Wales. This is a traditional list of notable landmarks in North Wales, commemorated in an anonymously written rhyme, usually supposed to have been written sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century by an English visitor to North Wales:

"Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,
Snowdon's mountain without its people,
Overton yew trees, St Winefride's well,
Llangollen bridge and Gresford bells."

The peal of bells of All Saints' Church, Gresford are, it is said, listed for the purity of their tone.
 

Calthrop

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The peal of bells of All Saints' Church, Gresford are, it is said, listed for the purity of their tone.

I'm going to cheat a bit -- Gresford has a sort-of-not-quite namesake settlement in New South Wales, Australia: East Gresford. Tullamore, Co. Offaly, has a straightforward no-ifs-or-buts namesake in N.S.W.
 

D6130

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Tullamore had a textile mill owned by Salts, the firm founded in the mid-19th century by Sir Titus Salt, after whom is named Saltaire in West Yorkshire, the location of his original mill complex and workers' model village.
 

Calthrop

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The author / poet / polemicist Hilaire Belloc (1870 -- 1953) was not keen on Glossop. It's irresistible to quote the Wiki item, citing a letter of his from 1909 from those parts: "Do you know the filthy village of Glossop? It is inhabited entirely by savages. I tried every inn in the place and found each inn worse than the last. It stinks for miles. Rather than sleep in such a den, I started walking back to Manchester with a huge bag..." One rather gets the feeling from some of Belloc's writings, that he disliked everywhere which wasn't his favourite county, Sussex (he wrote off the entire Midlands as "sodden and unkind") ... a Sussex settlement which he mentions fondly in a poem, is Halnaker, West Sussex -- near Chichester.
 

EbbwJunction1

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Halnaker is a hamlet which lies on the A285 road some 3.5 miles northeast of Chichester, where it follows the line of the Roman Road to London called Stane Street. North of Halnaker, this road passes through the village of Bignor.
 

EbbwJunction1

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Fishbourne is on the east bank of Wootton Creek, which is a tidal estuary that flows into the Solent on the north coast of the Isle of Wight; the village of Wootton is on the west bank of the creek.
 

Calthrop

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Kirkcaldy in Fife also has a church that is dedicated to St Mark.

There's a song -- or family of songs? -- Collier Laddie; of which, I know only odd fragments (Googling hasn't helped) -- seemingly "love lyrics", and "gritty politically radical" variants (@Xenophon PCDGS: you'll probably be fully au fait with this material). The / a "gritty political" mode thereof, involves mention by name of British centres of Labour-versus-Capital confrontation: including Kirkcaldy; and that place in Rhondda Cynon Taf borough with the name which, using English spelling / pronunciation conventions, looks and sounds goofy and childish -- but using Welsh ditto, is just fine -- Tonypandy.
 

Calthrop

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Going to be a little sneaky on the twinned-settlements front. Inverurie appears to be the only British settlement with a "twin" in the French departement of Hautes-Pyrenees -- the place concerned, being Bagneres-de-Bigorre. However: 50-odd km. south-east of the just-aforesaid, and higher up into the Pyrenees -- is another Bagneres: Bagneres-de-Luchon -- just over the departemental border, into Haute-Garonne; and twinned with Harrogate.
 
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Calthrop

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Colby, Norfolk -- west of North Walsham -- also has a namesake settlement in the Isle of Man.
 

EbbwJunction1

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St Margaret's Church, Durham contains a fine organ dating from 1917 and is by Harrison and Harrison of Durham. Another of the company's organs is in St George's Church, Douglas, Isle of Man, which was constructed in 2003.
 

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