Settlement Association

[John Griffiths]

Lichfield Cathedral famously has three spires. There is a Three Spires Medical Practice in Truro, Cornwall.

Note: the number of spires at the medical practice has not been verified.

 

[DerekC]

The traditional Christmas Eve service of nine lessons and carols was first developed by the Bishop of Truro in about 1880, but is now most famously associated with the service broadcast each year from the chapel of King's College, Cambridge.

 

[John Griffiths]

Camberley in Surrey was originally called 'Cambridge Town', after the Duke of Cambridge, the doddering notional head of the British Army (it being a barracky sort of place); the name caused too much confusion and misdirection of post.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Finchley in the N12 area of London also had a reputation as being a favoured haunt of highwaymen.

 

[John Griffiths]

Finchley had a prominent MP from the 60s to the early 80s - name escapes me - but came from Grantham, I believe.

 

[Tetragon213]

In the TV series Downton Abbey, the main character is Robert Crawley Earl of Grantham. The show was filmed at Highclere (Hants)

 

[High Dyke]

Calne in Wiltshire is also in the North Wessex Downs hill range, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

 

[John Griffiths]

Calne has a sculpture in bronze of two pigs, commemorating the town's role in commercial pork processing. Bath in Somerset has a sculpture of a pig next to a statue of Prince Bladud in Parade Gardens. Bladud - the father of King Lear - had leprosy, as did his pigs - and he noticed his pigs recovered after wallowing in hot springs in the Bath areas; he then became the first person known to have taken the waters at Bath. Or so I am reliably informed.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Whitchurch in Buckinghamshire also has a church that is dedicated to St John the Evangelist.

 

[John Griffiths]

Whitchurch has a Bolbec Castle. Newcastle upon Tyne has a Bolbec Hall.

 

[Calthrop]

Whitchurch has a Bolbec Castle. Newcastle upon Tyne has a Bolbec Hall.

Newcastle as above has a namesake, "sort-of", in the Australian State of New South Wales; though the Australian namesake is on a river called not the Tyne, but the Hunter. Lismore, Co. Waterford, also has a namesake settlement in that Australian State.

 

[Tetragon213]

Youghal (Co Cork) is also along the line of the River Blackwater.

 

[Calthrop]

Saltash, Cornwall: also lies on the western shore of a wide watercourse, shortly to meet the sea; and the eastern shore whereof, is in a different county.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Alfardisworthy in Devon also lies on the line of the River Tamar.

 

[Calthrop]

"Often shortened" settlement names -- a frequent theme here: Alfardisworthy's name is frequently contracted in speech, to "Alsworthy" (incidentally, as with Woolfardisworthy / Woolsery not far away). This kind of thing is done often in Britain -- not invariably re long, tongue-twisting names: example, Barnoldswick, Lancashire -- often rendered, locally, "Barlick".

 

[John Griffiths]

Earby is also a settlement transferred from Yorkshire to Lancashire in 1974.

 

[Calthrop]

Lapworth, Warwickshire -- between Birmingham and Warwick -- has a pub with pretty well the same name as Earby's hostelry: the Lancs. one, the Punch Bowl; the Warws. one, the Punchbowl -- "close enough for..."

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Wormleighton in Warwickshire was also once administered by the Hundred of Kington.

 

[John Griffiths]

A place with a similar name is Wormley in Hertfordshire, though the name origins differ. Wormley means 'worm (= snake) infested clearing; Wormleighton means 'leek patch (or herb garden) of Wilma', an explanation which to those of us of a certain age conjures images of Fred Flintstone hammering on his front door and bellowing WILMAAAA!

 

[Calthrop]

Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, also has a church dedicated to St. Lawrence.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Alkborough in Lincolnshire was also once under the jurisdiction of the Glanford Brigg Poor Law Union.

 

[Calthrop]

We learn that Alkborough was once thought to be the location which the Romans called Aquis; but that that name is now associated with Buxton (Aquis Arnemetiae), Derbyshire -- some 60 miles to the south-west. (Wretched Romans -- what did they ever really know or care about us barbarians and our lore? -- "Romani eunt domus" and all that ...)

 

[High Dyke]

The origins of the name are unclear. It may derive from the Old English for Buck Stone or for Rocking Stone.

Rocking stones (also known as logan stones or logans) are large stones that are so finely balanced that the application of just a small force causes them to rock.

The Pontypridd Rocking Stone in Wales is set within the middle of a Druidic stone circle.

 

[Calthrop]

Guildford, Surrey, is also twinned with a town in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Pontypridd's "twin" is Nuertingen; Guildford's is Freiburg-im-Breisgau.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Pyrford in Surrey also lies on the line of the River Wey.

 

[Tetragon213]

Follow the B367 northbound, and the road spits you out at Woking

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Moston in Greater Manchester also has a church that is dedicated to St Dunstan.

 

[Calthrop]

Can I get away with -- Castleton (Rochdale, Greater Manchester) is also mentioned in the song "in the folk idiom" Moses Of The Mail -- about a period in the history of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway when its running was highly inefficient, indeed shambolic.

 

[John Griffiths]

Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire also lies on the Rochdale Canal.

 

[High Dyke]

Holy Trinity Church is a redundant Anglican church on Low Lane in the village of Wensley, North Yorkshire. It also has a church organ built by Abbott and Smith. Christ Church in Sowerby Bridge also used to have one of theirs, though since replaced.