Settlement Association

[Calthrop]

Framlingham in Suffolk also hosts an annual sausage festival.

In 2006, the magazine Country Life voted Framlingham as the best place to live, in Britain. In 2022 the "satirical neighbourhood review" i LiveHere nominated as the worst place in Britain to live, Aylesbury (surprisingly to me).

At the risk of being rebuked for unseemliness -- these towns with their sausage festivals, brought unbidden to my mind: the "hip" American expression for a theatrical production / film / gathering of almost any kind which could, theoretically, be participated in by any number of people of either sex; but whose participants are overwhelmingly male; referred to as a "sausage-fest".

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Weston Turville in Buckinghamshire was also once administered by the Hundred of Aylesbury.

 

[Calthrop]

There is an area of Weston Turville, called World's End. The southern half of England has in all, a number of settlements bearing the name World's End / Worlds End / Worldsend. There is a World's End in Berkshire, some way north of Newbury.

 

[John Griffiths]

Freckleton, Lancashire also has a pub called The Coach and Horses.

 

[Calthrop]

Freckleton has a butcher's shop run by the family Snape, founded in 1864. Another instance of names belonging inter alia to British settlements, culled by by J.K. Rowling to use for her "Harry Potter" characters: is that of Bagshot in Surrey -- in the Potter books, a character from past history -- Bathilda Bagshot, author of A History of Magic.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Martins Heron in Berkshire also encompasses part of the Crown Estate-administered Swinley Woods.

 

[Springs Branch]

A different association with Harry Potter: Martins Heron was the filming location for the fictional town of Little Whinging, home of Harry Potter and the Dursley family.

Other locations used throughout the Harry Potter series of films were amongst the colleges of the University of Oxford.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The University Church of St Mary the Virgin (St Mary's or SMV for short), Oxford possesses an eccentric Baroque porch, designed by the English sculptor and architect Nicholas Stone (1586/87 – 1647). Another of Stone's finest works is the effigy of Elizabeth, Lady Carey (1545/50–1630) in the parish church at Stowe Nine Churches, Northamptonshire; it is considered one of his masterpieces.

 

[Calthrop]

According to legend, Stowe Nine Churches is so called, from its site being chosen by a "supernatural spirit", who moved the building materials to a different location overnight for nine consecutive nights ("Marry, Spirit, would that thou wouldst make up thine wretched mind ...") -- the prosaic reason has to do with the lord of the manor presiding over nine rectorships. Another settlement with a name involving a puzzling-at-the-outset large number, is Ruyton-XI-Towns, alias Ruyton Of The Eleven Towns (Shropshire -- between Shrewsbury and Oswestry). Explanation here: from the 12th century on, this place held the position of the major manor of eleven local townships.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

In 1308, an attempt was made to refound Ruyton-XI-Towns as New Ruyton, when it was awarded a charter that briefly gave it the same powers as the County of Bristol. However, as raiding (by the Welsh) continued, the new town declined and lost most of its rights, its borough status (with that of Clun) being formally abolished in 1886.

 

[Calthrop]

The humorist and cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather (1887 -- 1959) -- best-known as the creator of the cartoon character "Old Bill", glum but stoical World War I old soldier -- lived in Clun during the 1940s. For some of his education, he was a pupil at the United Services College at Westward Ho ! , North Devon.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Botallack in Cornwall also lies on the route of the long-distance footpsth known as the South West Coast Path.

 

[Calthrop]

Botallack is from the Cornish Bostalek = Talek's Dwelling (shades of Dr. Who, ha ha). A quite similar name is Bodinnick -- a good way east in Cornwall, near Fowey -- from the Cornish Bosdinek = Fortified Dwelling.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

There are also places called Bodinnick in the civil parishes of St Stephen-in-Brannel and St Tudy, North Cornwall.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Slaughterbridge in Cornwall also lies on the line of the River Camel.

 

[Calthrop]

St. Endellion, Cornwall, also lies on the B3314 road.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Warwick is another settlement with a Collegiate Church.

 

[Calthrop]

In the folk song Henry the Poacher, about transportation to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania): the eponymous Henry tells of his initial incarceration in Warwick jail after his arrest; and his woeful experiences on the way to, and in, the aforesaid place which will in the future become Australia's island State. As time goes on, things look up for him somewhat, without becoming altogether a bed of roses -- he gets assigned to work which he likes; and even acquires a convict girlfriend, late of Wolverhampton but transported (for reasons unspecified) for seven years. Nonetheless, an un-cheerful ditty.

 

[John Griffiths]

The first automatic traffic lights in Britain were introduced, albeit briefly, in Wolverhampton in 1927. The first zebra crossing was inaugurated (crossed) in Slough in the Festival year of 1951.

 

[DerekC]

The zebra crossing was developed by the Road Research Laboratory, then at Slough but now based at Crowthorne in Berkshire and called the Transport and Road Research Laboratory.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Leicester also has a symphony orchestra.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The tower and 220 foot spire of the Cathedral Church of Saint Martin, Leicester, commonly known as Leicester Cathedral, were designed by the architect Raphael Brandon and were rebuilt in the 1860s. They are, according to Pevsner, "intentionally impressive" and loosely based on The Church of St Mary the Virgin in Ketton, Rutland.

 

[Springs Branch]

Hanson Cement, a major building materials supplier, has limestone quarries at Ketton and in Lancashire at Clitheroe.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

People from Clitheroe are known as Clitheronians. One famous example is James Robinson (Jimmy) Clitheroe (1921 – 1973), best remembered for the long-running BBC Radio programme, The Clitheroe Kid, which ran from 1956 to 1972. Although born in Clitheroe, his childhood was spent in the mill village of Blacko, near Nelson.

 

[John Griffiths]

Comedian Tommy Trafford also lived in Blacko as a child. He was known as 'Mr Southport' because he played so many Christmas pantomimes in Southport.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

West Kirby in Merseyside also has a marine lake.

 

[Springs Branch]

The Wirral Way is a path on the track of an old railway that goes from West Kirby to Hooton in mid-Wirral.

Another well-established footpath & cycleway following the route of a disused railway is the Tissington Trail, between Parsley Hay and Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

St Oswald's Church, Ashbourne is named after Oswald of Northumbria and dedicated in 1241. From 1837 to 1840, it was restored by Lewis Nockalls Cottingham (1787 – 1847), who was a British architect who pioneered the study of Medieval Gothic architecture. Some years later, in 1846 - 1847, he restored the parish church of All Saints in the village and civil parish of Roos, East Riding of Yorkshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Lissett in the East Riding of Yorkshire also lies on the route of the B1242 road.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

St James Church, Lissett contains a stained glass window with Morris-style diamond-shaped flower details and lettering by Charles Eamer Kempe (1837 – 1907). Another example of his work can be seen in the Church of Holy Trinity on Bell Hill, Stapleton, Bristol, dating from 1887.