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Settlement Association

D6130

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Laurence Sterne, the 17th century Anglican Cleric and novelist - who wrote, amongst several other works 'Tristram Shandy' - was for several years vicar of Coxwold. He was born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland.
 
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RailUK Forums

Calthrop

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Holycross is served by the bus route from Thurles to Clonmel via Cashel. (The long-closed branch railway line from Thurles to Clonmel, did not run by way of Cashel [or Holycross] -- think I can get away with this, on basis of its being "geography / social history", rather than "gricing" !)
 
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The songwriter and entertainer William Percy French (1854-1920) - composer of The Mountains of Mourne, Phil the Fluther's Ball, Abdul Abulbul Amir and many more - is increasingly being recognised as a very talented watercolourist; one of his landscapes is of the Rock of Cashel. French hailed from Tulsk in County Roscommon.
 

Calthrop

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The songwriter and entertainer William Percy French (1854-1920) - composer of The Mountains of Mourne, Phil the Fluther's Ball, Abdul Abulbul Amir and many more - is increasingly being recognised as a very talented watercolourist; one of his landscapes is of the Rock of Cashel. French hailed from Tulsk in County Roscommon.

Oddly enough, only about a dozen miles south-west of Tulsk -- across the county boundary in Co. Galway -- is another village with a monosyllabic name with a Russian look -- Glinsk.

(I'd long been aware of the song "Abdul etc."; but had no idea that it was by Percy French. Wiki tells us that he composed it in 1877, during the Russo-Turkish War.)
 

Calthrop

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There is, reputedly, haunting of Ballygar and surrounding area by a gigantic spectral black dog -- known in Ireland as a "pooka". Burnley, Lancashire, is reputedly in much the same case: its similar apparition being called familiarly "Trash" or "Skriker".
 

Calthrop

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Charles Kingsley -- author of The Water Babies and Westward Ho ! -- seems to have travelled widely in Britain, including at least visiting Arncliffe. Kingsley spent some of his childhood -- around the 1820s -- at Barnack (one of my favourite places), where his father was Rector. In Kingsley's day, Barnack was in Northamptonshire (Soke of Peterborough); it is nowadays in Cambridgeshire.
 

Calthrop

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About a mile west of Pilsgate is Burghley House, "a grand sixteenth-century English country house" -- venue of, among other things, the annual Burghley Horse Trials. Burghley House was subsequent to 1801, the residence of the Marquesses of Exeter: an instance, I feel, of the geographical weirdness to which the English aristocracy are prone (as with the Duke of Devonshire's seat being in Derbyshire; or the Duke of Norfolk's, at Arundel in Sussex).
 

Calthrop

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Incidences of settlement's name being shared with surname (admittedly, linked with baronetcy / viscountcy respectively, bearing name concerned) of personage in recent past, connected particularly with the "travel" scene. These are: Sir Francis Chichester (flyer, and solo sailor; renowned particularly for his solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1966 / 67); and John Julius Norwich (popular historian, travel writer, and TV personality).
 

Calthrop

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Until the earlyish 19th century, the St. Albans racecourse hosted the Great St. Albans Chase, then the most prestigious steeplechase in England. Seemingly, rivalry with the upstart venue at Aintree (now in Merseyside) and its Grand National, resulted in victory for the latter -- the St. Albans event was discontinued w.e.f. 1839.
 

Calthrop

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The name Altcar is from the Old Norse, meaning "marsh by the River Alt". Some kinship with Redcar, North Yorkshire: the "car" element, likewise Old Norse "marsh"; the first syllable, from the Old English word either for "red", or "reed".
 

Calthrop

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Rudby lies on one of the several Rivers Leven in England and Scotland. Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire, is situated on another river of that name: the six-mile River Leven which drains Loch Lomond, running into the River Clyde some way west of Glasgow.
 
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Enham Alamein (Hampshire) also (partially) shares a name with a place in Egypt (although Alexandria was named after the local landowner, Alexander Smollett of Bonhill, rather than the library-and-pharos-famed city)
 

DerekC

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The Roman Road from Winchester to Cirencester passes very close to Enham Alamein. Heading North North West, it passes through Savernake Forest before crossing the River Kennet near the village of Mildenhall, Wiltshire.
 

Calthrop

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Fyfield long had an inn called -- like many in England -- the Fighting Cocks; Fyfield's was demolished in the 1930s for road management. Among numerous places still with a pub of that name, is Arnside, Cumbria (to be exact, this one has the ghastly "Ye Olde" prefix).
 

Calthrop

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Dent, Cumbria, also lies on the Dales Way long-distance footpath -- essentially running between the Lake District, and west Yorkshire.
 

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