Exotic place names in the UK

[Pacific231G]

I think it's a shame that Madderport, Much Madder and Gammon Madder aren't real. They deserve to be and, compared with some real place names, a River Madder is quite credible.

Update

In fact it's perfectly credible as there really is a River Madder in Wiltshire. It flows through Wilton

H.S. Merritt: Bridge over the River Madder, Wilton

I don't know when the local busybodies got it renamed as the River Nadder but from now on I know what I shall call it. It was the River Madder in the 1830s but Naddder by the end of the 19th C.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Pacific231G

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I always thought Billericay should be somewhere in Ireland.

So do a lot of people.

[jpendle]

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

I quite fancy Ryme Intrinseca. 

 

 

Well you learn something new everyday.

 

I didn't know that Ryme was a ladies name 

 

John P

[phil_sutters]

I haven't ploughed all the way back to the beginning - Have we had Tarring Neville - a hamlet on the Lewes road out of Newhaven? I don't know what Neville had done to warrant tarring. It is, I am told, only one of two double-barrelled place names in East Sussex - the other being Horsted Keynes - if any one has heard of that place. That is presumably if you don't count East, West etc prefixes. There are plenty of them. I live in East Blatchington. West Blatchington is the other side of Brighton a dozen or more miles away. 

There are many 'bottoms' around here but they are just valleys, usually without any houses. When a lad on Mendip, I was amused by a place on the bus route from Coleford to Frome called Dead Lady's Bottom.

Edited March 11, 2020 by phil_sutters
Additional info

[zarniwhoop]

1 hour ago, phil_sutters said:

I haven't ploughed all the way back to the beginning - Have we had Tarring Neville - a hamlet on the Lewes road out of Newhaven? I don't know what Neville had done to warrant tarring.

I think the Neville family owned it. They were one of the major landowners in Sussex. The addition distinguishes it from the other Tarring (aka West Tarring) which is now within Worthing.

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

When a lad on Mendip, I was amused by a place on the bus route from Coleford to Frome called Dead Lady's Bottom.

 

One of our local bus routes has a stop called Mockbeggar.

[phil_sutters]

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

One of our local bus routes has a stop called Mockbeggar.

I pass it when visiting my sister in Earley.

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

I haven't ploughed all the way back to the beginning - Have we had Tarring Neville - a hamlet on the Lewes road out of Newhaven? I don't know what Neville had done to warrant tarring. It is, I am told, only one of two double-barrelled place names in East Sussex - the other being Horsted Keynes - if any one has heard of that place. That is presumably if you don't count East, West etc prefixes. There are plenty of them. I live in East Blatchington. West Blatchington is the other side of Brighton a dozen or more miles away. 

There are many 'bottoms' around here but they are just valleys, usually without any houses. When a lad on Mendip, I was amused by a place on the bus route from Coleford to Frome called Dead Lady's Bottom.

 

A very high percentage of the double-barreled names involve the name of the owning family or body. There are many of them in Dorset, Somerset and Herefordshire. Some of the ones in Herefordshire are definitely exotic with French family names, presumably from Norman times. Neville is, I think, a French name too. In Dorset and Somerset we have several xxx Abbas (i.e. belonging to the local abbey) and a few xxx Episcopi (i.e. belonging to the local bishop).

[bike2steam]

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

In fact the whole Camel-lot. 

 

 

Now ya know why they try to link Cadbury Castle with King Arthur, they got it all wrong with Tintagel!!!

[MarkC]

Another one from County Durham - Snod's Edge...

[Nick C]

9 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

I haven't ploughed all the way back to the beginning - Have we had Tarring Neville - a hamlet on the Lewes road out of Newhaven? I don't know what Neville had done to warrant tarring. It is, I am told, only one of two double-barrelled place names in East Sussex - the other being Horsted Keynes - if any one has heard of that place.

 

There's quite a few double placenames in East Sussex. Excluding the compass directions, you've got Barcombe Cross, Barcombe Mills, Broad Oak, Broad Oak (yep, two villages with the same name!), Five Ash Down, Forest Row, Hadlow Down and Stone Cross. Horsted Keynes doesn't count, it's in West Sussex...

 

Plus, not a village, but appropriate for this thread, the SSSI at Lower Dicker

Edited March 11, 2020 by Nick C

[Oldddudders]

I think the cricket ground at Royal Tunbridge Wells is called Nevill, without the E. He, Nevill, was Marquis of Abergavenny, I read. The LBSCR had several locos named after him. 

 

On-topic, Abinger Bottom is a nice sort of place. 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, bike2steam said:

Cadbury Castle

 

Many a child has been severely disappointed visiting there. 

[Bill Radford]

Derby suburbs can boast both California and New Zealand. In addition there's Little Chester - the Roman bit. There's Sunny Hill and also Rose Hill.

 

Of course there's plenty of gates, including Friargate (the disused station), but I think the best gate is Overgate in Dundee, overlooking the Minnie and Dan statues.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Bill Radford said:

Of course there's plenty of gates, including Friargate (the disused station), but I think the best gate is Overgate in Dundee, overlooking the Minnie and Dan statues.

 

In the Danelaw, a gate isn't a gate - that's a bar - but a street. Alnwick has Bondgate Tower, which is an example of a bar. Bondgate doesn't refer to its function but rather to its location, straddling the street called Bondgate, dividing Bondgate Without from Bondgate Within. This street had once been the dwelling-place of bondsmen, i.e. serfs of the Percy family.

Edited March 11, 2020 by Compound2632

[iands]

Couldn't really describe it as "exotic", but when I was a trainee at Selby, Henwick Hall was on our patch (at that time on the ECML before the Selby diversion). We used to get there by turning off the A1041 at a place called "Cat Babbleton" - I've always thought this would be a good fictitious name for a small country station.

[Kylestrome]

I may have mentioned this before, but I'm rather fond of the Wallops in Hampshire. Over Wallop, Middle Wallop and especially Nether Wallop.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

21 hours ago, Bishop of Welchester said:

 

That's Walter the Softy from Dennis the Menace, surely.

 

I'm a little unclear as to which of the two is the cartoon character..... 

[HonestTom]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

In the Danelaw, a gate isn't a gate - that's a bar - but a street. Alnwick has Bondgate Tower, which is an example of a bar. Bondgate doesn't refer to its function but rather to its location, straddling the street called Bondgate, dividing Bondgate Without from Bondgate Within. This street had once been the dwelling-place of bondsmen, i.e. serfs of the Percy family.

Have we mentioned Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate in York?

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Kylestrome said:

I'm rather fond of the Wallops in Hampshire

I'm not fussed where they are so long as they are not too hard

 

As we were discussing the Brighton, Hove and Sussex area above then we need to acknowledge Devil's Dyke, Fulking (which many a local schoolboy found amusing enough to alter on the class map), Itchingfield (once proud owner of a railway junction) and Burpham.

 

Farther west in Hampshire we encounter Sandy Balls and Nomansland.  

[Dave 46]

On 09/03/2020 at 16:38, Nick C said:

<snip> and Hazlemere (sic)...

Hazlemere is the correct spelling for the place near High Wycombe.

 

Dave

 

[pH]

On 09/03/2020 at 16:50, Ian Smeeton said:

Still, it is nicer than Fancy Farm, in Greenock. Not Fancy, and not a farm.

 

Also a district in Greenock - Cornhaddock.

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, HonestTom said:

Have we mentioned Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate in York?

Yes - I was beaten to it

[The Stationmaster]

Not too far from. here we have Assendon including Lower Assendon.   And I've often wondered how that might have been pronounced in times past.  Before you get there heading north westwards you pass a pub called The Golden Ball which the locals know by another name.  And once you've passed the Assendons you come to Pishill - which has two pronunciations and in the not too distant past the one you used could well be indicative of your social class (or what you wished to convey to others as your class):  it is incidentally nowadays the site of quite extensive vineyards.

[The Johnster]

I was once told by a Landore driver who may have been having me on that The Mumbles in Swansea got it's/their name from the respectable types who moved there in Victorian times discovering that the Welsh name, Y Bronydd, meant 'The Breasts', which makes sense when you look at Mumble Head from the other side of the bay.  In embarrassment, they mumbled the name when anyone asked where they lived.  According to the bilingual road signs, Welsh for The Mumbles is 'Y Mwmbls', which is simply Mumbles pronounced phonetically in Welsh.  

 

As I say, he may have been having me on but I sort of hope he wasn't; it's the sort of thing I'd like to be true.