• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Settlement Association

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
The actor Jack Wild (1952 -- 2006), who specialised in "kid" roles / "kids-targeted" films (most famous as the Artful Dodger in the 1968 film version of Oliver!) was born in Royton; he died in Tebworth, Bedfordshire (near Dunstable).
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

johnnychips

Established Member
Joined
19 Nov 2011
Messages
3,676
Location
Sheffield
A flooded ex-quarry in Houghton Regis is used for fishing, as is a flooded ex brick-pit in Edlington, South Yorkshire.
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
We learn that since 2017, the climb on the A472 through Hafodyrynys has been adjudged as the most polluted stretch of road in Wales. Turning from roadways to waterways: the currently most polluted river in the UK is reckoned to be -- rather surprisingly -- the Lea / Lee, tributary of the Thames; on which tributary, Hertford has the misfortune to lie.
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
Datchworth has a pub called the Tilbury. Tilbury unfortunately does not have a pub called the Datchworth; but it has one called the World's End.
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
In the late 16th / 17th centuries era, North Berwick (East Lothian) was also a very witchcraft-conscious place, with sundry witch trials and executions.
 
Last edited:

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
It is reckoned that the name of Banff comes from the Gaelic language; but precisely how, would seem uncertain. Suggested, are banbh = piglet; buinne = stream; or a contraction of Bean-naomh = holy woman. Wiki quotes someone called William J. Watson, as being opposed to the "piglet" theory -- writing rather sniffily, "...a suckling pig is not appropriate -- one might say it is impossible -- as the name of a place or district." Conceivably the inhabitants of Swindon, Wiltshire (believed to be from the Anglo-Saxon swine dun = "pig hill"), would disagree.
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
A couple of centuries ago, Shadwell was briefly, one of Britain's more unlikely "spa-wannabe's" -- the supposedly medicinal waters coming from a spring in "Sun Tavern Fields" there. Another such unhopeful contender in these stakes has been Hovingham, North Yorkshire. (Railway-related "aside": in the late 19th century this village's station, on the Gilling -- Malton section, had "Spa" appended to its original just-Hovingham name, in an attempt to drum up taking-the-waters business.)
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
Wombleton in North Yorkshire was also once administered by the Hundred of Maneshou.

@Xenophon PCDGS: in all affection -- sometimes, I could swear that we here are on the receiving end of a wind-up exercise on your part -- with you coming out with stuff which is purely the product of your highly-fertile imagination. No doubt the principal and most respected inhabitants of this village are Tobermory, Wellington, Bungo, Madame Cholet, and Great Uncle Bulgaria. And Maneshou -- shurely straight out of Native American legend <D ...

Back to serious game business: Marsham -- Norfolk, near Aylsham -- also has a pub called The Plough.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

Veteran Member
Joined
17 Apr 2011
Messages
32,269
Location
A semi-rural part of north-west England
OBSERVATION

It might come as a surprise to fellow contributors, but in the Domesday Book, there were no less than 62 of those North Yorkshire settlements that were once administered by the Hundred of Maneshou.

Your name : Xenophon PCDGS

Your chosen subject : Knowledge of churches, poor law unions and medieval administrative hundreds of Britain ...... :D
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
OBSERVATION

It might come as a surprise to fellow contributors, but in the Domesday Book, there were no less than 62 of those North Yorkshire settlements that were once administered by the Hundred of Maneshou.

Your name : Xenophon PCDGS

Your chosen subject : Knowledge of churches, poor law unions and medieval administrative hundreds of Britain ...... :D

You're no slouch on illuminated village signs, either :smile: -- anyhow; those Normans were funny, in the titles they came up with: have mentioned before on here, my discovering that under their rule, Sussex was divided into districts called "Rapes": my first seeing a reference to "the Norman Rape of Bramber", had me imagining a lurid scenario about some atrocity perpetrated by the Conquerors in the first euphoria of their victory -- was a relief to discover that it was just orderly administrative stuff !
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
Taking heed of another option....

Stock in Essex also has an illustrated village sign.

The poet William Cowper was a friend of William Unwin, rector of Stock -- mentioned in at least one of Cowper's poems. Cowper lived for a time at Weston Underwood, near Olney, Bedfordshire.
 

johnnychips

Established Member
Joined
19 Nov 2011
Messages
3,676
Location
Sheffield
Another writer, the diarist Parson James Woodforde, also lived in a Weston, but Weston Longville, near Norwich.
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
This gentleman's niece -- a diarist in her own right -- long lived as companion and housekeeper to her reverend uncle, in Weston Longville. She died in 1830 in Castle Cary, Somerset (a place of some rail fame -- divergence-point of GWR's cut-off to the west -- there's also a Scottish Castlecary, of rail import).
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,297
Kempston in Bedfordshire also lies on the line of the River Great Ouse.

Quoting Wiki, mostly verbatim -- Frances Latham (1609 -- 1671), born in Kempston, was the daughter of Sir Lewis Latham, falconer to King Charles I. She later migrated to North America -- colony of Rhode Island -- where many of her progeny in times to come, became renowned bigwigs. There is nowadays in the US State of Rhode Island (presumably nothing to do with Frances) a town called Warwick.
 

Top