Settlement Association

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Sibford Ferris in Oxfordshire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Banbury Poor Law Union.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Home Close, Sibford Ferris, was designed and built in traditional Cotswold style by the British architect and artist Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865 – 1945) in 1911. The now demolished Majestic Hotel at Onchan, Isle of Man was also designed by him, although no date is known.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ramsey on the Isle of Man also lies on the route of the A2 coast road.

 

[D6130]

Ramsey has a namesake in Cambridgeshire, which lies approximately half-way between Huntingdon and March.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire also has an athletics club.

 

[D6130]

Alloa in Clackmannanshire was also a major centre of the brewing industry.

 

[Calthrop]

Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, has a closely-corresponding likewise-alliterative name for its football team: they are Alloa Athletic and Annan Athletic, respectively.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Halifax in West Yorkshire also has a church that is dedicated to St Columba.

 

[D6130]

Hartshead in Tameside, Greater Manchester also has a tall 'folly' tower.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Crumpsall in Greater Manchester also has a major hospital within its environs.

 

[Calthrop]

A favourite heraldic feature for people or communities which pride themselves on their work ethic: bees (several of them). Said insects thus occur in the coats of arms of Crumpsall; and Blackburn.

 

[Springs Branch]

The architecture of Blackburn's 19th-century Technical School bears a remarkable similarity to the almost identical-looking Mining & Technical College built in the same era in Wigan.

Apparently it's known as the Northern Rennaissance style.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

St Helens also has a top-flight noted professional rugby league club.

 

[Calthrop]

Probably undeserved "rubbishing" of not-obvious-tourist-gem towns in this general part of the world -- there was a cartoon in Punch, late 19th-century, inspired by a painting from the time, showing a glum Napoleon on board ship on his way to St. Helena: caption, "He's utterly convinced he's being exiled to St. Helen's, poor devil !". A similar bit of unkindness in the little rhyme from a rather later date:

Ashton-under-Lyne
Is fine
If you keep
Asleep.

 

[D6130]

Former local folk group, The Fivepenny Piece, sang a song about the mills and chimneys of Ashton-under-Lyne. The also sang a song about the nearby Stalybridge station.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Former local folk group, The Fivepenny Piece, sang a song about the mills and chimneys of Ashton-under-Lyne. The also sang a song about the nearby Stalybridge station.

Did you ever hear them sing the song about Stalybridge market? I often saw them perform in those now far-off bygone days. I once sang the song about "Big Jim" the worm who was used for bait in fishing competitions....a cross between an eel and a boa constrictor.

 

[Calthrop]

Former local folk group, The Fivepenny Piece, sang a song about the mills and chimneys of Ashton-under-Lyne. The also sang a song about the nearby Stalybridge station.

Did you ever hear them sing the song about Stalybridge market? I often saw them perform in those now far-off bygone days. I once sang the song about "Big Jim" the worm who was used for bait in fishing competitions....a cross between an eel and a boa constrictor.

Songs -- but not about any of the above; those hitherto unknown to me. Concerned here is It's a Long Way to Tipperary -- which I'd imagined as a fairly "rubbish" run-of-the-mill music-hall song, brand-new in 1914 and just happening to suit the mood of the moment. Not so, it would seem: learnt that the song's genesis was in the Newmarket Tavern, Stalybridge, in 1912: the composer Jack Judge was challenged to write, compose, and produce a song in just one night -- his response was Tipperary. Said song involves the old "thing" about Irish people being intellectually challenged -- Paddy wrote a letter to his Irish Molly-O: If you don't receive this letter, write and tell me so. Similarity here, with another beloved -- roughly contemporary -- Irish-theme song, The Mountains of Mourne by our friend Percy French: Irish self-mockery here; with some of the things said by the "voiced" chap of the song, being a bit clueless. Percy F. was born in Tulsk, Co. Roscommon.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Rathcroghan also in County Roscommon was another settlement visited by the artist Gabriel Berenger in 1779 when he was painting the antiquaties of Ireland for the Hibernian Antiquarian Society.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

There doesn't seem to be anyone actually living at Rathcroghan these days, as Mr W Pedia describes it as "a complex of archaeological sites near Tulsk in County Roscommon."

The nearest settlement seems to be Bellanagare, which is a village located between Tulsk and Frenchpark on the Dublin to Castlebar / Westport road in County Roscommon.

 

[Calthrop]

It seems that Bellanagare's best-known citizen has to be the historian, and champion of Catholic and Irish emancipation, Charles O'Conor (1710 -- 91), who spent most of his life as the most prominent resident of Bellanagare. He now and again spent time in Dublin, pursuing his interests / causes.

 

[DerekC]

Hurlford in East Ayrshire has the same Gaelic name "Baile Atha Cliath" as Dublin

 

[D6130]

Darvel in East Ayrshire also lies on the River Irvine.

 

[Calthrop]

Folk in the area sometimes refer to Darvel as "The Lang Toon" (= "the long town"). The same "pet name" is often given to Kirkcaldy (Fife).

 

[D6130]

Kirkcaldy was the birthplace of the 18th Century social economist and philosopher Adam Smith, author of 'The Wealth of Nations' and widely regarded as the founder of capitalism. He was educated at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Coventry also has an elephant on its settlement coat of arms.

 

[Calthrop]

One of my favourite humorous writers, Paul Jennings (1918 -- 1989) -- whose flights of fancy have been useful to me from time to time in this game -- attended school in Coventry in his teens. He lived in the later decades of his life, with his family, in East Bergholt (Suffolk) -- near Manningtree.

 

[D6130]

East Bergholt was the birthplace of the artist John Constable. He died in London and is buried in the churchyard of St John at Hampstead.

 

[Calthrop]

Hampstead has a pub called the Old White Bear. Hinckley, Leicestershire, has one called Steamin' Billy White Bear (goodness knows what that's all about...)

 

[D6130]

Leicester was also once a major centre of the hosiery industry.

 

[Calthrop]

Walsall, West Midlands, is also twinned with a settlement in the Alsace region of France. Leicester's "twin" is Strasbourg; Walsall's is Mulhouse.