Odd place names?

[TheSignalEngineer]

Bumble Hole

[Oldddudders]

Blue Anchor - Somerset.   Blue Anchor - miles away in South London.

 

Stoat's Nest.

 

Stoats Nest rather disappeared for many decades as a name, following a particularly nasty crash there about 1910. I think a Pullman car had a wheel shift on the axle. The name was revived by BLRS - Brighton Line Resignalling Scheme in the early '80s. In the meantime Coulsdon North was used, I think.

[Adam]

Blue Anchor - Somerset. Blue Anchor - miles away in South London.

 

Stoat's Nest.

But the Blue Anchor inn by the turnpike road on the seaward side of Carhampton parish, facing the Bristol Channel was there from at least the 1780s. Since the railway passed.the pub and the station explicitly served the needs of tourists (local freight was dealt at Watchet and Dunster until the '20s, I think), the name makes a lot if sense. It's still known as Blue Anxhor bay, after all.

 

Adam

[SM42]

Many years ago now, (well it seems like lot to me) the first signal box they let me loose on was Meaford Crossing. (prounounced Mefford I was told)

 

This was to be found at the end of the station drive in Stone, Staffordshire.   Indeed the crossing still is there, still called Meaford, just not the box unfortunately.

 

It was a bit of a trek to Meaford power station from there too, so how they were related to the name Meaford I'm not too sure.

 

New St station has  north and south junctions even though these are effectively west and east .

 

The West Dock could be found at the North end and the East Dock at the South

 

Andy

[TheSignalEngineer]

Many years ago now, (well it seems like lot to me) the first signal box they let me loose on was Meaford Crossing. (prounounced Mefford I was told)

 

This was to be found at the end of the station drive in Stone, Staffordshire.   Indeed the crossing still is there, still called Meaford, just not the box unfortunately.

 

It was a bit of a trek to Meaford power station from there too, so how they were related to the name Meaford I'm not too sure.

 

New St station has  north and south junctions even though these are effectively west and east .

 

The West Dock could be found at the North end and the East Dock at the South

 

Andy

 

Stone station lies a short way to the northeast of the town. The area used to be known as Stonefield, but I don't know if that is still used.

Meaford power station was by Meaford Hall, about a mile northwest of the station, by the junction of the A34 and A51. I'm not sure why the crossing and signalbox took the name of Meaford.

 

At New Street I don't think the ends were referred to as North and South Junctions. The South Tunnel used to be referred to as New Street Tunnels. The North Tunnel was sometimes known as Monument Lane Tunnel.

Of course it is possible to go to the south via the North Tunnel and the north through the South tunnel.

East and West only came in with the rebuilding and 1966 resignalling. The West Dock was on the location of the Fish Siding. 

[The Stationmaster]

But the Blue Anchor inn by the turnpike road on the seaward side of Carhampton parish, facing the Bristol Channel was there from at least the 1780s. Since the railway passed.the pub and the station explicitly served the needs of tourists (local freight was dealt at Watchet and Dunster until the '20s, I think), the name makes a lot if sense. It's still known as Blue Anxhor bay, after all.

 

Adam

 

Blue Anchor is actually the landward place adjacent to an anchorage (Blue Anchor Roads) in the Bristol Channel so there is probably a longstanding nautical connection to the nameA p

[rogerzilla]

It's not that unusual but it has an unusual story.  Midgham station, between Reading and Newbury, has a couple of claims to fame:

 

1. It was originally "Midgham for Douai Abbey" (Douai is pronounced "Dow-ee" locally, however the French say it).  The big wooden black-and-white GWR signs with that wording were still there and kept well painted in the mid-1980s but have now vanished in favour of standard Network Rail signage.  i imagine they were sold to collectors as they were in such fine condition..

 

2. The station isn't in Midgham, nor even close.  It's in Woolhampton.  Midgham, a rather smaller hamlet, is a couple of miles away on the other side of the A4 and up a hill.  The station was called Woolhampton when first built but so many parcels for Wolverhampton turned up there in error that the name was changed.

[jonny777]

It's a good job the railway from Filton to Avonmouth went to the south of where the airfield runway was sited, otherwise they might have had to add a station at Catbrain; a name that has always intrigued me, although there have been attempts at local explanations.

[rogerzilla]

Rushey Platt was an amusing backwater (literally; it served a silted-up bit of canal and nothing else) of a station on the M&SWJR west of Swindon.  Apparently hardly anyone used it and it once suffered the ignominy of a train destroying the platform.  Obviously, no-one was hurt!

[The Stationmaster]

Noted elsewhere on the 'net a signalbox named  'North Eastrington West' (picture posted by MickNich of this parish)

[Adam]

Blue Anchor is actually the landward place adjacent to an anchorage (Blue Anchor Roads) in the Bristol Channel so there is probably a longstanding nautical connection to the nameA p

 

Coming back late to this, but the name really is derived from the pub (or inn, earlier a house). The name was first recorded in 1678!

 

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol5/pp39-54

 

The document cited is in the Somerset Heritage Centre at Taunton.

 

Adam

[wagonman]

Coming back late to this, but the name really is derived from the pub (or inn, earlier a house). The name was first recorded in 1678!

 

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol5/pp39-54

 

The document cited is in the Somerset Heritage Centre at Taunton.

 

Adam

 

 

There were other stations named after pubs: wasn't there one on the Stockton & Darlington called Fighting Cocks? Or am I making a cock-up?

[Worsdell forever]

There were other stations named after pubs: wasn't there one on the Stockton & Darlington called Fighting Cocks? Or am I making a cock-up?

And another pub named Masons Arms crossing in Shildon.

[Mark Saunders]

And another pub named Masons Arms crossing in Shildon.

 

Another not so far away is Oak Tree junction at Dinsdale!

 

Mark Saunders

[melmerby]

Not so much an odd place name as an unusual source for a common street name:

 

https://goo.gl/maps/NuoxuVgAXWx

 

Station Street in Bromsgrove isn't on a Railway station and doesn't lead to a Railway station.

Bromsgrove Station is getting on for one mile away in the Aston Fields area at the end of New Road!

 

However the County Constabulary Police Station was on Station Street.

 

https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/395882/270500/13/100381

 

Keith

[wagonman]

Berney Arms Halt on the GER...

[roundhouse]

Berney Arms Halt on the GER...

Pubs good although it's under threat

[philsandy]

Besses o'th Barn.

 

I use to live a couple of hundred yards from the station. It's on the Manchester Victoria - Bury line, now the Metrolink tram system since 1993.

I was told the place name derived from old Lancashire dialect, and it referred to a woman in the locale called Bessie who owned a barn , ie. Bessie of the barn.

Apparently it was the only station in the UK whose BR totem station signs were in lower case.

[62613]

Besses o'th Barn.

 

I use to live a couple of hundred yards from the station. It's on the Manchester Victoria - Bury line, now the Metrolink tram system since 1993.

I was told the place name derived from old Lancashire dialect, and it referred to a woman in the locale called Bessie who owned a barn , ie. Bessie of the barn.

Apparently it was the only station in the UK whose BR totem station signs were in lower case.

Thought it was to do with the brass band of that name; or was it the other way round?

[Rivercider]

There were other stations named after pubs: wasn't there one on the Stockton & Darlington called Fighting Cocks? Or am I making a cock-up?

Bugle on the Newquay branch is named for the 19th century village which grew up around the inn of the same name.

In 1840 the newly built inn is said to have been named in honour of a local bugle player,

 

cheers

[roundhouse]

Bugle on the Newquay branch is named for the 19th century village which grew up around the inn of the same name.

In 1840 the newly built inn is said to have been named in honour of a local bugle player,

 

cheers

A pleasant pub serving St Austell ales

[Nearholmer]

Bits of infrastructure are named by people, who often bring their own ideas in.

 

There is a large, newly developed, area close to where I live, which has road names that make no sense until you think. "Preserved railway", then they all click into place. Yet it is nowhere near any railway at all. But, the now-retired Head of Roads and Bridges at the local council is currently chairman of the local MR club!

 

When planning new railway power supply sites, we were expressly banned from using pub names, because it had been deemed "bad form" at some point.

 

Norwood Junction. Wasn't that originally called Jolly Sailor? Which is a pretty good name for a station, which came from a pub, and, I think, in turn from the Surrey Canal, rather than the salt-sea, but I may be wrong.

 

Kevin

[Oldddudders]

 

Norwood Junction. Wasn't that originally called Jolly Sailor? Which is a pretty good name for a station, which came from a pub, and, I think, in turn from the Surrey Canal, rather than the salt-sea, but I may be wrong.

 

 

 

Just as Belmont (LBSCR) was originally called California. 

[Rugd1022]

Pouparts Junction near Battersea - I dread to think how that name came about, I always have a chuckle when I'm driving down there..!

 

Edit... just realised I already mentioned it on page one of the thread... it's been one of those weeks!

[Nearholmer]

Bo peep junction is always one that I wondered about, so I did some further delving:

 

A pub, the name of which refers to excise-men, this being a great smuggling area, and the full text of the nursery rhyme is, apparently, all about sheep (smugglers) and tails (their goods, which they would throw overboard and collect later, if caught in the act). http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46966

 

Wasn't Mr Pouparts a seriously big-time market gardener and greengrocer? Of French origin.

 

K