Settlement Association

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Poxwell in Dorset was also once administered by the Hundred of Winfrith.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

In the Middle Ages, Poxwell, or Pokeswell, was a possession of Cerne Abbey, the Benedictine monastery founded in 987 in the town now called Cerne Abbas, Dorset, by the splendidly named Æthelmær the Stout, also known as Æthelmær Cild.

 

[Springs Branch]

Wimborne in Dorset (sometimes known as Wimborne Minster) also has a microbrewery.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Pocklington in the East Riding of Yorkshire also hosts an annual music festival.

Too late, was the cry!!!!!

 

[John Griffiths]

Newbury is also given an alias in the works of Thomas Hardy (Nether Moynton and Kennetbridge respectively).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Furzehill in Dorset also lies on the the line of the River Allen.

 

[John Griffiths]

Isaac Gulliver (1745-1822), known as 'King of the Dorset smugglers' and also as 'The gentle smuggler who never killed a man' ran a successful operation with fifteen luggers bringing goods from the Continent. The Stocks inn in Furzehill was one of his depots and distribution points. He was born in Semington, Wiltshire. He died a rich man, a banker, and was interred in Wimborne Minster.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Bathampton in the Bath/Somerset area also lies on the line of the Kennet and Avon Canal.

 

[John Griffiths]

Plasticine was manufactured in Bathampton between 1900 and 1983 by William Harbutt, a native of North Shields.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Worcester is another settlement with a Spiritualist Church.

 

[Calthrop]

Within the city limits of Worcester is the wooded area of Perry Wood; where according to a local tale (of a kind which one might expect from a strongly Royalist city), Oliver Cromwell met the Devil and made a pact with him. Another place endowed -- at one time, anyway -- with a wood with spooky connotations, is Birnam (Perth and Kinross) -- viz. the business in Macbeth about Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane. (There now remain of Birnam Wood only two, highly venerable, trees: an oak and a sycamore.)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Bankfoot in Perth and Kinross also lies on the route of the B867 road.

 

[Calthrop]

One of Bankfoot's pubs is called the Atholl Inn. Aberdeen has an Atholl Hotel.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Lowestoft in Suffolk also has a maritime museum.

 

[Calthrop]

The composer Benjamin Britten (1913 -- 1976) was born in Lowestoft: described by one rude individual as "the only person of real celebrity to have emerged from darkest Lowestoft". As is well known, he spent the later decades of his life some way down the Suffolk coast, in Aldeburgh.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Hoylake in Wirral also suffered a lifeboat disaster.

 

[DerekC]

Porthtowan in Cornwall also has a Blue Flag beach

Damn - gazumped by @Xenophon PCDGS again! I was hoping that Hoylake had a blue flag as well, but it hasn't!

Eastleigh in Hampshire (rather surprisingly) also has a lido.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Portreath in Cornwall also lies in the area of both the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and also the world heritage site of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape

 

[Springs Branch]

The MoD's Air Surveillance and Control Systems Force Command has a radar station at Portreath, with its national Control and Reporting Centre at Boulmer in Northumberland.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Solva in Pembrokeshire also has historic connections with smuggling.

 

[Springs Branch]

Another Welsh settlement with a still-operational woollen mill is Trefriw, Conwy.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Mary Owen was born in Trefriw in 1803, and lived to the age of 108. She moved away to live at Fron Olew, Mynydd Llwydiarth, Pentraeth, Anglesey. By May 1911 she broke the record to become the oldest person to live in Wales, indeed in Britain. She died in 1911 and was buried in the graveyard at Pentraeth.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Abernodwydd in Anglesey also lies on the line of the Afon Nodwydd.

 

[DerekC]

I think it's stretching a point to call Abernodywdd a settlement. However it does have a legend.

Einion ap Gwalchmai in the 12th century is said to have jumped fifty feet over the river Nodwydd there, in front of his girlfriend to win her as a wife. Another location with romantic leaping associations is "Lovers Leap" near Poundsgate on Dartmoor, although the leap there had a tragic rather than happy ending. It's a long and complicated story which ends with the lovers, William Kingdon and Rosine Trafford, who can't marry because William has taken monastic vows after thinking he had lost Rosine, jumping together into the River Dart, never to be seen again.

 

[Calthrop]

There is another local tale in which Poundsgate is involved: that of the Great Thunderstorm of 1638 (it's worth Googling) -- part of this complicated saga, involves a local gambler and card-player who had made a pact with the Devil; the deal being that the Devil could have his soul if he ever found him asleep in church. A more light-hearted "sleeping in church" bit, is the short verse item mentioning Fratton, Hampshire -- near Portsmouth:

There was an old fellow of Fratton
Who would sit in church with his hat on.
"If I wake up," he said,
"With my hat on my head;
I'll know that it hasn't been sat on."

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Portsea in Hampshire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Portsmouth Poor Law Union.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Probably the most well known of the people born in Portsea was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was born on 9th April 1806 in Britain Street, Portsea. While performing a conjuring trick for the amusement of his children in 1843 he accidentally inhaled a half-sovereign coin, which became lodged in his windpipe. A special pair of forceps failed to remove it, as did a machine devised by him to shake it loose. At the suggestion of his father, he was strapped to a board and turned upside-down, and the coin was jerked free. He recuperated at Teignmouth, and enjoyed the area so much that he purchased an estate at Watcombe in Torquay, Devon. Here he commissioned William Burn to design Brunel Manor and its gardens to be his country home. Sadly, he never saw the house or gardens finished as he died in 1859, before it was completed.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire also has a church that is dedicated to St Matthias.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Stocksbridge Park Steels FC is the town's local football club; it was founded in 1986 following the merger of Stocksbridge Works FC and and Oxley Park FC. Their home ground is Bracken Moor, located at the eastern end of the town, and they play in the Northern Premier League Division One East. Carlton Town FC are also members of the same League, and they play at the Bill Stokeld Stadium (named after the former Chairman), Gedling, Nottinghamshire.

 

[Calthrop]

With my fondness for J.R.R. Tolkien: a settlement with which he has some association, is Gedling. Around the era of World War I, he had friends in Gedling (then a deeply rural spot outside of Nottingham); he liked the people and the place, and stayed there a number of times. Before becoming a "fixture" as it were in Oxford; JRRT is recorded as spending time in / visiting numerous assorted locations in England -- this in part, to do with his World War I Army service; the majority of which was, for health-related reasons, in Britain -- this likely having some bearing on his coming through the war alive and whole. One such, was Roos -- East Riding of Yorkshire, near Withernsea.