Settlement Association

[Calthrop]

Pentrich, Derbyshire (near Alfreton) also has a small firm producing up-market chocolates (in Uffculme, Wille Harcourt-Cooze's Delectable; in Pentrich, Aphrodite).

 

[DerekC]

The Pentrich Martyrs were three men who were hanged for leading a (rather minor) uprising in the early 19th Century which seems to have been associated with the Chartist movement. The Tolpuddle Martyrs, a little later, were six men convicted under the Unlawful Oaths Act for swearing secret oaths (their real crime being that of combining to form an early Trade Union) and transported to Australia. (Tolpuddle is, of course, in Dorset)

 

[D6130]

Tolpuddle is named - with a slight spelling variation - after the River Piddle or Trent, along which lies a whole string of villages whose names include the words Piddle or Puddle. One of the villages - Piddletrenthide - combines both of the river's alternative names. (Honestly....I'm not making this up! Where's Bill Bryson when you need him?)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Kinloch Rannoch in Perth and Kinross also has a church that is dedicated to All Saints.

 

[John Griffiths]

The film Shepherd on the Rock (1993), starring Bernard Hill as a sheep farmer who refuses to sell his land to an evil capitalist developer, had scenes filmed in Kinloch Rannoch and also (among other places) Callander, in the traditional county of Perthshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Deanston in the Stirling council area also lies on the line of the River Teath.

 

[John Griffiths]

Documentary filmmaker John Grierson (Night Mail and much more) was born in Deanston in 1898. After his death in 1971 his ashes were scattered off the Old Head headland at Kinsale, County Cork.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Armagh in County Armagh also has a sailing school.

 

[John Griffiths]

Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, also has a Catholic place of worship with twin spires.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Throckley in Tyne and Wear was also once under the jurisdiction of the Castle Ward Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

A notable resident in Throckley in times past was William Brown: 18th-century consulting engineer, responsible for the construction of many colliery wagonways throughout the North-East of England. Not to be confused with another, and fictional, William Brown: the naughty-schoolboy hero of the stories by Richmal Crompton; who (Crompton, that is) long dwelt in Bromley Common, London Borough of Bromley.

 

[DerekC]

In Bromley Common is a pub named the Chatterton Arms, named after the poet Thomas Chatterton. I haven't been abie to find out whether he had any other association with the area. He was born in Bristol and committed suicide by poisoning himself with arsenic at the age of 17. His works were mainly in the style of the 15th Century, for which he adopted the pseudonym of Thomas Rowley, a monk. Some of them were accepted as genuine by scholars who only found out they weren't long after his death.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Douglas in the Isle of Man also has a camera obscura that is open to the public.

 

[D6130]

Heysham in Lancashire is linked to Douglas by a regular ferry service.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

West Kirby in Merseyside is another settlement where a Viking hogback stone can be seen.

 

[Calthrop]

The renowned actress Glenda Jackson -- recently deceased -- attended West Kirby Grammar School. Between roles, early-ish in her career, she worked for a time as a "bluecoat" at the Pwllheli (Gwynedd) Butlins Holiday Camp (actually some miles out of Pwllheli town).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Holyhead in Anglesey also has a marina.

 

[Calthrop]

A very good friend of mine; is however a bit weird about a couple of things. One such -- at his grammar school, most of a lifetime ago: through fiercely vehement but erroneous teaching, he was convinced -- and has remained so ever since -- that English spelling vis-a-vis pronunciation, is phonetic. He thus says the name of the Anglesey port, as "Hoaly-head", as in "sacred-and-blessed" (if you tell him that everyone in Britain says "Holly-head", except him and the strange people who taught him, if any of them are still alive; he'll say in all seriousness, that everyone in Britain is therefore wrong). By the same token: he pronounces Leominster, Herefordshire, as "Lee-oh-minster"; although per everyone else, it's universally "Lemster".

 

[D6130]

Arthur Henry Peppercorn - the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London & North Eastern Railway and designer of the class A1 pacific locomotives, of which 'Tornado' is a replica - was born in Leominster on 29th January 1889. He died in Doncaster on 3rd March 1951.

 

[Calthrop]

"Roman Doncaster", such as it was; was a fort named Danum. Another settlement where the Romans featured, is Chester. This last, was Roman Deva -- it, and Danum, are examples of mercifully short and pronounceable Roman equivalents of modern British settlements -- some of such are long, and hard to get one's head / tongue around !

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Erbistock in Wrexham County Borough also lies on the line of the River Dee.

 

[Calthrop]

Erbistock has a pub called the Cross Foxes; which seems a very popular pub name in North Wales and the Marches thereof. There is actually a tiny hamlet of that name (with, of course, a pub thus-named) -- in Gwynedd, a little way east of Dolgellau; administratively one with the neighbouring hamlet of Brithdir, about which there may be a bit more to say, than about C.F. No clarification seems available as to why this pub name should be so greatly liked in these parts; nor of precise significance -- angry vulpines? non-pure-bred ones? -- "Enquiring minds wish to know..."

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Gelligaer in the Rhymney Valley was also once administered by the Hundred of Caerphilly.

 

[Calthrop]

Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, also has a church dedicated to Saint Cadoc (Welsh Cattwg). (Cadoc, originally Welsh, travelled to many places during his ministry; including Cambuslang.)

 

[DerekC]

The Hoover company had a manufacturing plant in Cambuslang, but it closed in 2005. There was also one in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, but that closed in 2008.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ratho in Rural West Edinburgh also has a noted climbing centre.

 

[Calthrop]

Linlithgow, West Lothian, also lies on the Union Canal; which links Edinburgh with Falkirk.

 

[John Griffiths]

Linlithgow was the birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots. Jedburgh has an old tower house named Mary Queen of Scots' House, which may or may not be the building she resided in when visiting Jedburgh in 1566, as there were other (now demolished) candidate buildings, and the surviving one may or may not have existed in 1566. It's a nice little museum though and worth a visit ( entrance free).

 

[Calthrop]

A much-loved Jedburgh "thing", is the local sweetmeat called "Jethart Snails" (Jethart being an older, alternative name for Jedburgh): brown toffee infused with peppermint then twisted into the shape of a snail, then hard-boiled (reputedly a French recipe which came to these parts via the Napoleonic Wars). Another "sweetie" with decidedly-local associations in these islands, is the Northern Irish confection called "yellowman" -- chewy, bright yellow toffee-textured honeycomb -- associated above all else, with its traditional ubiquitous availability at the annual Lammas Fair at Ballycastle, Co. Antrim.

 

[D6130]

Ballycastle was connected for some years by a Summer seasonal car ferry service to the British mainland's most remote town - Campbeltown in Argyll & Bute.