In J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter universe", with its fanatically-followed (and logically nonsensical) sport of Quidditch, played on flying broomsticks: one of Britain's top Quidditch teams are the Wigtown Wanderers. Another such, are the Tutshill Tornados; whose home is Tutshill, Gloucestershire (near Chepstow) -- Rowling lived in Tutshill for a while in her early life.
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DerekC
Established Member
Tutshill is almost the last place that Offa's Dyke Path runs through before it reaches the Severn at Slimeroad Pill (what a name!). At its northern end the path reaches Liverpool Bay rather tamely on the seafront at Prestatyn.
"Slimeroad Pill" as mentioned -- could imaginably be an epithet conveying loathing, invented by someone hostile -- for religious or other ideological reasons -- to contraception
.Philip Larkin -- poet with a certain tendency to glumness in his works -- wrote a poem titled Sunny Prestatyn: describing a poster advertising the resort, which gets progressively defaced by vulgar graffiti. Another poem by Larkin involving British place-names, is An Arundel Tomb: inspired by top-of-tomb statuary figures of members of the noble Arundel family, in the cathedral of Chichester (West Sussex).
DerekC
Established Member
(I hope I will get away with this one...). William Huskisson was MP for Chichester from 1812 to his death in 1830. In that time he held a number of offices of state including First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, President of the Board of Trade, Treasurer of the Navy and Secretary of the Colonies. He resigned from the government in 1828 over parliamentary representation for the town of Retford, Nottinghamshire. (He appears to have been trying to mend fences with the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, when he was fatally injured by the Rocket).
Retford has, as British towns go, a fairly high incidence of traditions of hauntings-by-ghosts; one of such being The Unfaithful Wife of West Retford Hotel (sounds intriguing). The Isle of Wight is supposedly one of the most haunted parts of Britain; with an especially high reputed incidence of same, affecting the Botanic Gardens at Ventnor.
(No problem seen with Huskisson -- he'd have been perfectly valid for the game re his Parliamentary doings "and associated"; irrespective of his brief and very unfortunate experience of the new form of transport.)
(No problem seen with Huskisson -- he'd have been perfectly valid for the game re his Parliamentary doings "and associated"; irrespective of his brief and very unfortunate experience of the new form of transport.)
John Griffiths
Member
The more than somewhat rackety poet Algernon Swinburne was buried in 1909 in the Ventnor district of Bonchurch; he died, however, at The Pines, Putney Hill, Putney in SW London where he had spent the latter 30 years of his life..
DerekC
Established Member
Putney Bridge, constructed in 1729, was the second to be built across the Thames in London. It was, however, preceded by a temporary "bridge of boats" close to the same site, built by Cromwell's army in 1642. On the other side of the bridge lies Fulham.
EbbwJunction1
Established Member
St Thomas of Canterbury Church (also known as St Thomas's, Rylston Road), is a Roman Catholic parish church in Fulham. It was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Augustus Welsby Northmore Pugin in 1847 and is Grade II* listed. Another of Pugin's works is Our Lady and St Wilfrid's Church in Warwick Bridge, Cumbria, which was completed in 1841.
DerekC
Established Member
Ross on Wye, like Kirkby Stephen, still has a weekly livestock market.
A surprisingly large number of British settlements, it sometimes seems; have had their names adjusted during the past, loosely, couple of centuries: in the interests of rationalisation and error-avoiding re postal-delivery matters. This happened concerning Ross-on-Wye, as late as 1931; up till then, the town had been simply Ross -- but the GPO officially added the suffix then, to remedy confusion with other places of the same or similar name. Potentially one such (also located on a prominent river of its country) -- though, one feels, unlikely to have played a big role in the problem -- is New Ross, Co. Wexford; situated on the River Barrow.
D6130
Established Member
MONASTEREVAN (sometimes spelled MONASTEREVIN) in Co. Kildare also lies on the River Barrow.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 -- 89) -- poet, Jesuit priest, and teacher -- had a liking for Monasterevan: visits to which, afforded him pleasant interludes in his generally not very happy latter years, spent teaching in Dublin. Hopkins, following his vocation, spent time during his life in a variety of places: one such, being Sheffield.
D6130
Established Member
PENISTONE in South Yorkshire also lies in the valley of the River Don.
John Griffiths
Member
Burgess Hill, Sussex, is also a Fairtrade (sic) town.
DerekC
Established Member
The Royal National Mòd, an annual festival of Gaelic literature, music and culture, has been held in Thurso once, in 2010. The festival has been held over the years in many different Scottish towns, but the place to host it the largest number of times and also the place it was held first, in 1892, is Oban, Argyll and Bute.
D6130
Established Member
Middlesbrough also has a Roman Catholic cathedral.
An explanation (with rivals reckoning otherwise) of Middlesbrough's name, suggests its originating from the settlement's being midway between the holy sites of Durham and Whitby. By the same token -- and accredited as being more likely correct -- Midleton (Co. Cork) = "Middle Town": being midway between Cork city, and Youghal. (Temptation to libellous comment re "clueless Paddies who can't spell ") ...
") ...
DerekC
Established Member
Lady Elizabeth Villiers, mistress of King Williama III (William of Orange) founded a school in Midleton, where she had inherited considerable estates. However her centre of operations in later life was Cliveden, near Taplow in Buckinghamshire.
Springs Branch
Established Member
The Thames Valley area seems to be a favourite place to live for many celebrities and successful media personalities.
Several of this ilk have lived in Taplow - including Sir Terry Wogan.
Wogan was born in 1938, in Limerick Co. Limerick.
Several of this ilk have lived in Taplow - including Sir Terry Wogan.
Wogan was born in 1938, in Limerick Co. Limerick.
johnnychips
Established Member
Lawrie McMenemy came from Gateshead. He was manager of Southampton FC for many years.
DerekC
Established Member
The Supermarine Spitfire, perhaps the most famous British aircraft of all time, was designed and initally produced in Southampton. However production was dispersed in 1940 and a number of shadow factories set up. These enabled production to continue despite the destruction of Supermarine's Woolston factory in September 1940. By far the largest of these production facilities was at Castle Bromwich, Warwickshire.
Kenilworth, Warwickshire, is also a settlement -- a significant "navigation point" in times past -- on the ancient "Welsh Road": stock-drovers' route from Wales into the English Midlands and ultimately to London.
DerekC
Established Member
In the centre of Kenilworth is a Kugel ball sculpture called the Millennium Globe. In this feature, a large stone or steel sphere is located in a closely matching spherical socket into which water under pressure is pumped. This enables the ball to rotate freely on the water cushion produced. There is a similar although larger sculpture at Paulton's Park near Ower in Hampshire. (Paulton's Park is the home of Peppa Pig World)
I'll probably regret this in the morning -- but post 33,236 strikes me as so inspired-ly crazy as to convey to one -- by tortuous and tenuous mental processes -- an association between the place-name Ower: and a certain settlement in Fife, on the north shore of the Firth of Forth not-far-from opposite Edinburgh. Workings thereof: the settlement is mentioned in the old, tear-jerking but somewhat batty, ballad of Sir Patrick Spens and what befell him -- final verse thereof:
Half ower, half ower, tae Aberdour; 'Tis forty fathoms deep; And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spens, Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.
Half ower, half ower, tae Aberdour; 'Tis forty fathoms deep; And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spens, Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.
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D6130
Established Member
PENRITH in Cumberland also has a ruined castle immediately adjacent to its railway station. (Not a railway-related association per se IMHO).
I recall reading, connected with GCE English long ago: that William Wordsworth in his youth had a brief and unhappy spell working in the shop of a mercer -- which I learnt, is a cloth-merchant -- in "the dismal town of Penrith". Later in his life Wordsworth dwelt from 1795 to '97 -- in a period of exile from his beloved Lakeland -- a couple of miles from Broadwindsor, in the far west of Dorset.
Springs Branch
Established Member
Broadwindsor is in the DT8 Postcode district, which it shares with the nearby town of Beaminster (still in Dorset).