Elstow's greatest fame has to be: as the place of birth and childhood, of a certain person who wrote a certain religious-inspirational book. One passage in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress features "Vanity Fair": a tawdry and boisterous trading-and-fun set-up, full of both temptation for the would-be godly; and assorted nastiness and violence. The critics generally reckon that the author was inspired by the real-life Stourbridge Fair; but which one? Cambridge, the university city, long held an annual fair; called, for tortuous reasons, Stourbridge Fair. The majority seem to reckon that that was this one which inspired Bunyan; others, though, are protagonists of the more modest but still lively, annual fair at Stourbridge, Worcestershire. You pays your money, I suppose ...
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Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Lye in West Midlands also lies on the line of the River Stour.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Shrewsbury in Shropshire also lies on the line of the River Severn
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
West Chevington in Northumberland was also once under the jurisdiction of the Morpeth Poor Law Union.
West Chevington is currently the site of a big project in the nature-conservation line -- "rewilding" a former open-cast coal mine. Another, prominent, such undertaking, re a different environment -- what had previously been farmland -- is taking place in West Sussex at Knepp, near West Grinstead -- between Horsham and Shoreham-by-Sea. (This latter project told of in the acclaimed 2018 book Wilding, by Isabella Tree.)
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Shermanbury in West Sussex also lies on the line of the River Adur.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Bromsberrow in Gloucestershire was also once administered by the Hundred of Botloe.
The former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has dwelt briefly in Bromsberrow, on a farm located in the village. His fellow-Top Gear guy Jeremy Clarkson has had a longer and better-known farm-related involvement: this being his farm -- purchased and much told-about on TV and in books, by him -- near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Brigham in Cumbria also has a church with a Sanctus Bell.
West Kirby, Merseyside, also has a church dedicated to St. Bridget. (Despite a certain degree of name-similarity: Brigham's name is reckoned nothing to do with the saint; but from Old English brycg plus ham -- "homestead near the bridge".)
Just realised -- "church matters, then more church matters". Might I plead for forgiveness?
Just realised -- "church matters, then more church matters". Might I plead for forgiveness?
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Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Southport also has a marine lake.
High Dyke
Established Member
The Ailsa Shipbuilding Company was a Scottish shipbuilding company based in Troon. One of the last vessels they built prior to closure was the MV Lochnevis.
MV Lochnevis replaced the 20-year-old Lochmor on the Small Isles service. She serves the islands of Eigg, Canna, Rùm and Muck sailing from Mallaig.
MV Lochnevis replaced the 20-year-old Lochmor on the Small Isles service. She serves the islands of Eigg, Canna, Rùm and Muck sailing from Mallaig.
Some scenes of the acclaimed 1983 film Local Hero were shot around Mallaig: more, though, at Pennan on the Aberdeenshire coast -- between Fraserburgh and Banff (perhaps paradoxically -- with the film's action per plot, being set in a settlement on Scotland's west coast).
My italics: popularly known, from their names, as the Cocktail Islands.
High Dyke
Established Member
Skendleby, Lincolnshire also has a Long Barrow, just like Pennan.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Wetherby in North Yorkshire also has a racecourse that has steeplechase fences.
John Griffiths
Member
Barrow was the place where Britain's first submarine was built, and it continues to build submarines for the Royal Navy. They have however also been constructed at other locations, including Fairfield's yard in Govan on Clyde side.
High Dyke
Established Member
The Match was filmed in the Scottish village of Straiton.
One of the film's production companies was Irish DreamTime, owned by actor Pierce Brosnan who appears in a cameo role in the film as John MacGhee.
Brosnan was born in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland.
One of the film's production companies was Irish DreamTime, owned by actor Pierce Brosnan who appears in a cameo role in the film as John MacGhee.
Brosnan was born in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland.
John Griffiths
Member
Drogheda was in 1649 the centre of some unpleasantness brought about by Oliver Cromwell, a native of Huntingdon.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Gloucester also lends its name to a type of cheese.
Dungloe, Co. Donegal, also features in a folk-idiom song, celebrating a charming lady from the settlement or area thereof -- Dungloe, Mary; Gloucester, Jenny [Glenn] -- I think the latter, is in fact associated with Gloucester in Massachusetts rather than England -- but what the heck...
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Roscommon in County Roscommon also has a District Court.
Roscommon holds, at the first weekend of May each year, a Lamb Festival -- devoted to "things sheep-and-lamb", especially cooking and eating thereof. There is a different kind of "lamb" focus at a venue in the Norfolk Broads area -- Wroxham Barns, an establishment offering shopping, and getting acquainted with farm animals. A speciality there is, in the appropriate season, giving visitors the opportunity to watch lambs being born (not an experience, one feels, which would appeal to everyone). The "Barns" are actually closer to the village of Ashmanhaugh, than to better-known Wroxham.
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