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Calthrop

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Buried in the churchyard of Sithney parish church is John Rogers (1778 -- 1856): clergyman, landowner, mine-owner, botanist, mineralogist, and scholar of Hebrew and Syriac -- a versatile gent; for long, Rector of Mawnan, not very far away. His schooling was at Eton.
 

Calthrop

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More 17th-Century stuff, I'm afraid: on 27 / 4 / 1646, King Charles I -- fleeing Oxford on his way to surrender to "the opposition" at Southwell, Nottinghamshire -- stopped at Harrow-on-the-Hill to take a final glimpse of London (took that route for that especial purpose, maybe? -- not a geographically obvious Oxford -- Southwell one).
 

Calthrop

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A diligently complied history of York, titled Eboracum, by the antiquary and surgeon Francis Drake: was published in 1736. This gentleman's considerably better-known naval namesake of a couple of hundred years previously, lived for the latter part of his life at Buckland Abbey, Buckland Monachorum (South Devon).
 
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Nottingham Castle, home of the Duke of Newcastle, was burned down during so-called Reform riots in 1831. A similar level of excitement prevailed that summer in Bristol, where the authorities lost control of the city for three days.
 

Calthrop

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Welwyn Garden City also has a church that is dedicated to St Bonaventure.

"W.G.C." was for long quite well known -- helped by some publicity from the producers -- as the place of making of the breakfast cereal Shredded Wheat, which people tend either to love or hate. In more recent times, involving a change of makers, production of said comestible has switched to Staverton (near Trowbridge, Wiltshire).
 
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Calthrop

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Near Yarnbrook is Picket Wood, a surviving remnant of what was long ago the extensive forest of Selwood; wherein in 878 AD, Alfred the Great gathered his forces to withstand the advancing Danes. An earlier battle in which those adversaries confronted each other (Alfred lost) was at Wilton, also in Wiltshire.
 

Calthrop

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Overton (Hampshire) is also on the Trafalgar Way -- the route taken by couriers in 1805, to convey news of the Battle of Trafalgar as quickly as possible from Falmouth to the Admiralty in London.
 
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Polhampton also was part of the Peculiar of Overton with Tadley and Polhampton. Masham in North Yorkshire was also a Peculiar - probably the best known of these ecclesiastical oddities, since the local brewery Theakstons named its strong ale 'Old Peculier' [sic].

A peculiar in this context was a district outside the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese in which it was situated.
 
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Calthrop

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My word, you folks with your erudition about long-ago administrative / ecclesiastical territories... though like most beer drinkers, I'd been aware of Masham's Peculi[e/a]r.

Masham holds an annual Steam Engine and Fair Organ Rally. A similar, and considerably larger, annual event is the Great Dorset Steam Fair, regular venue Tarrant Hinton near Blandford Forum.
 

Calthrop

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Iwerne Minster and its neighbouring village Shroton, alias Iwerne Courtney: feature in a nearly-a-millennium-ago contex, in Julian Rathbone's quasi-historical novel The Last English King -- a grand yarn, in my opinion.
 
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Motcombe House has been home to Port Regis School, a somewhat peripatetic preparatory (try saying that after a few pints) school which has moved five times since its foundation in London in 1881. Between 1921 and 1943 it was roosting in Broadstairs, Kent.
 

Calthrop

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Wilmslow holds an annual Scarecrow Festival. Scarecrow-show doings also take place in Bowcombe, Isle of Wight.
 
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Skellingthorpe was the victim of rather ineffectual bombing during the last Zeppelin raid on the UK in WWI, on 12-13 April 1918. Another place hit that night was Shirley in Warwickshire (now West Midlands)
 

Calthrop

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Wiki is interesting on the subject of Shirley's raffish past, a couple of centuries ago: various conditions there and then, re the area, "attracted sporting activity in the form of bull baiting, cockfighting... and pugilism. These activities encouraged the church authorities to start building St. James Church in 1831..." Half a century or so later, a similar story unfolded in Gorton, Manchester; with an initiative on the part of St. Mark's Church there to provide more wholesome pursuits for the often unruly local male youth, involving founding a football club which ultimately became Manchester City F.C.
 

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