Settlement Association

[EbbwJunction1]

Nether Winchendon has been a frequent setting for television and film production, including two episodes in the Midsomer Murders series. The main town in the series, Causton, is represented by a number of towns, including Thame in Oxfordshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Stoke Talmage in Oxfordshire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Thame Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

Eccleston, Cheshire, also lies two and a half miles from an English Civil War battlefield. The battles concerned are -- Stoke Talmage: Chalgrove (1643); Eccleston: Rowton Moor (1645).

 

[EbbwJunction1]

There is a gold painted post box gold in Eccleston to celebrate resident Sir Bradley Wiggins' gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He was born on 28th April 1980 in Ghent, Flanders, Belgium, to an Australian father, Gary Wiggins, and a British mother, Linda. His father lived in Belgium as a professional cyclist, but left the family when Wiggins was two. He moved with his mother to her parents' house in Villiers Road, Willesden Green, north-west London, then to neighbouring Maida Vale.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Pontllanfraith in Caerphilly County Borough also has a church that is dedicated to St Augustine.

 

[Calthrop]

It tends to be pretty easy to find some connection, somehow, with the saga of the Titanic ! On that night in April 1912, Artie Moore -- an amateur radio operator in Pontllanfraith -- picked up a signal from the stricken ship. William McMaster Murdoch, the Titanic's First Officer (died in the disaster) was born in Dalbeattie, Dumfries & Galloway.

 

[Springs Branch]

The name Dalbeatie, according to one interpretation, is derived from the Gaelic word beitheach - abounding in or relating to birch trees.

In Wales, the old Welsh word bedw – indicating birch trees, birch grove or birch woods – is said to be the origin of the name of the town of Bedwas near Caerphilly.


[EDIT] Typo corrected. Time to invest in a new keyboard with all keys functioning.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I cannot trace a settlement in the Caerphilly region named Bewas, but did find one called Bedwas.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The English Victorian gentleman writer George Borrow (1803–1881) passed through Bedwas in November 1854. He recorded it in his later book of his travels Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery as Pentref Bettws, which he said meant village of the bead-house. This visit was towards the end of his tour of Wales; a place visited by him towards the beginning of the tour was Betws-y-coed in the Conwy Valley.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Capel Curig in Conwy County Borough also lies on the line of the River Llugwy.

 

[Calthrop]

Capel Curig in Conwy County Borough also lies on the line of the River Llugwy.

The business of English people -- not au fait with the Welsh language's spelling / pronunciation rules -- who struggle with same: have seen criticism of English mangling of the pronunciation of this one, as "Cayple Cure-Rig". This sort of thing sometimes done deliberately, in a spirit of -- hopefully affectionate -- fun. In their youth, my parents -- English, from the Chester area -- and their friends, enjoyed miscalling Rhosllanerchrugog (Wrexham County Borough) "Roast Lamb and Goosegogs [gooseberries]".

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ruthin in Denbighshire has also hosted the National Eisteddfod of wales

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Just as Ruthin has a former Gaol that is now a visitor attraction, so has Bodmin.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Helston was another of the stannary towns of Cornwall and Devon.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

"The Floral Dance" is an English song written by the English violinist, pianist, and professional concert singer Kate Emily Barkley ("Katie") Moss describing the annual Furry "Floral" Dance in Helston. One of the many versions of it was recorded by Terry Wogan in 1978, by popular request from listeners who enjoyed hearing him sing over the instrumental hit by the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band who are based in based in Brighouse, Calderdale, West Yorkshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Salterhebble in West Yorkshire also lies on the line of the Calder and Hebble Navigation.

 

[Calthrop]

Salterhebble in West Yorkshire also lies on the line of the Calder and Hebble Navigation.

We learn that Salterhebble means, in "old-time" local speech, "footbridge of the salt-sellers". Another settlement with a name which seems to a modern eye / ear, convoluted and a bit comical -- but is in fact meaning-wise logical and "ticking all boxes": is Zeal Monachorum, Mid-Devon. The name arises from that manor's having been given in 1018 by the then king, to the Abbey of Buckfast: thus "cell" (wherein monks renownedly live) -- from similar words in Old French and, further back, Latin -- and worn-down over the centuries, into "Zeal"; "monachorum" = Latin "of the monks".

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Bow in Devon also lies on the line of the River Yeo.

 

[Calthrop]

Bow in Devon also lies on the line of the River Yeo.

Close to the above-bolded, archaeologists have discovered the site of a 3rd-millennium BC ceremonial "woodhenge" -- akin to the famous Stone ditto in Wiltshire; but with the long-vanished pillars, having been made of timber. There is a better-known Woodhenge, only two miles north-east of Wiltshire's Stonehenge: with the places of the one-time wooden pillars nowadays marked by (low) concrete ones. Nearest settlement thereto is Durrington, Wiltshire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Veryan in Cornwall also has a church that is dedication to St Symphorian, (He was martyred in France in 180AD)

The village has some unusual examples of circular cottages.

 

[Springs Branch]

The poet John Betjeman described Veryan in glowing terms as "a mild tropic garden".
Another of Betjeman's favourite settlements - "the loveliest town in England" - was Ludlow.

 

[Calthrop]

Ludlow's name in Welsh -- Llwdlo -- would seem greatly to resemble the English counterpart. At all events, to one who is not a learned linguist: the Welsh name for Oxford -- Rhydychen -- would on the other hand, appear pretty much as unlike the English, as could be imagined.

 

[Calthrop]

Veryan in Cornwall also has a church that is dedication to St Symphorian, (He was martyred in France in 180AD)

I not being well-up-on saints: my only previous acquaintance with the name of this one -- and the name only -- had been in the context of the town of Saint-Symphorien in the Gironde departement in France; by reason of that place's having been "way back when", a point of some significance on the area's once extensive system of standard-gauge light railways.

(Comment only -- for next "association", see my preceding post.)

 

[341o2]

Oxford has a combined greyhound and speedway racing track, the one at Poole recently ended greyhound racing, but will continue as a speedway

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The headquarters of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) are in Poole. The Grave Darling Museum, run by the RNLI, was opened in 1938 at Bamburgh, Northumberland to commemorate the centenary of her rescue of the SS Forfarshire.

 

[Calthrop]

The headquarters of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) are in Poole. The Grave Darling Museum, run by the RNLI, was opened in 1938 at Bamburgh, Northumberland to commemorate the centenary of her rescue of the SS Forfarshire.

Bamburgh brings to mind, the -- for me, splendid, at least in the earlier ones of the series -- historical novels by Bernard Cornwell of "Sharpe" fame, set in the 9th century AD: their hero, Uhtred of Bebbanburg (millennium-ago form of the name Bamburgh). Uhtred -- half-Saxon, half-Dane, with a good deal of sympathy for the Danish element; nonetheless becomes, as circumstances work out, a general in the armies of King Alfred the Great, in his struggle with the invading Danes. (Although Uhtred serves Alfred: on a personal level, most of the time they can't stand each other -- much fun therefrom, in the books.) An episode of the war Danes / Alfred's Wessex, involves Chippenham, Wiltshire; where in the year 878, Alfred prevailed over the invaders, and a kind of peace treaty ensued.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Sopworth in Wiltshire was also once administered by the Hundred of Chippenham.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Sopworth lies on an unmarked road which eventually leads southwards towards the M4, passing on the way through Acton Turville.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Pucklechurch in South Gloucestershire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Chipping Sodbury Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

One of my favourite "go-to's": Basildon (Essex) is also twinned with a settlement in the French departement of Seine-et-Marne. Pucklechurch's "twin" is Pringy; Balsildon's, Meaux.