Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: UK

  • Great Yarmouth – Name Origin

    Great Yarmouth – Name Origin

    Since I’m on a roll with these name origins, and I want a relatively complete list for Norfolk, back to The Concise Oxford Dictionary Of English Placenames.

    Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Gernemwa in Domesday Book, Gernemuta Magna in 1254. The mouth of the River Yare.

    The Magna means great, which is solely to avoid confusion with Southtown on the southern side of the river, formerly known as Little Yarmouth. The word origin is different from Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, but the word Great has probably persisted to differentiate those two towns. ‘Garienis’ is the Saxon word for the River Yare, so it started with something like ‘Garmud’ and that ‘d’ at the end was pronounced as ‘th’.

  • Brundall – Name Origin

    Brundall – Name Origin

    Brundall was on our third training walk for the LDWA 100, so here’s a quite meander over to The Concise Oxford Dictionary Of English Placenames.

    Brundall, Norfolk. Brundala in Domesday Book, Brundale in 1180 and Brundhal in 1257. Perhaps a compound of Old English bromede, or broomy, and Halh.

    The ‘halh’ bit is usually a secret place, a tucked away area or some land which is separate from its administrative area. The word ‘broom’ is an old English word for a bramble and by coincide (I assume) there’s also a boat company called Brooms of Brundall. All sounds a bit convoluted and unlikely to me, but I like the idea of Brundall meaning ‘the secret brambled area’.

  • Bath – Beckford’s Tower (Tomb of William Beckford)

    Bath – Beckford’s Tower (Tomb of William Beckford)

    The tomb of William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844), with Beckford’s Tower in the background, more on which in another post. Beckford managed to have quite a few interests, aided with a substantial legacy from his father of the same name, which included literature, art collecting, travelling and building design.

    Beckford was buried at Bath Abbey cemetery on 11 May 1844 and the tower where he wanted to be buried, then called Lansdown Tower but now better known as Beckford’s Tower, was flogged off to the publican of the Freemasons Arms on Abbey Green who planned to use the land as a beer garden. I doubt Beckford would have been entirely satisfied at this, but fortunately for him, his daughter was able to buy back the land and in 1848, Beckford was buried outside the tower in this grand pink granite tomb. This had proved impossible earlier on as it was consecrated ground, but permission was granted and there are now around 5,000 other burials at the site.

  • Bath – December 25th Shop

    Bath – December 25th Shop

    When I took this photo in 2017, I assumed that this was just a shop set-up for Christmas, although I thought that they were being a little enthusiastic opening in August. The shop on Cheap Street was though much more permanent, run for over 30 years by Graham Tomkiss, but it sadly closed in 2018. A pop-up shop opened on New Bond Street for Christmas 2019, but there’s no confirmation yet whether there will be anything for 2020.

    For children though, this must have kept the excitement of Christmas alive for the whole year.

  • Bristol – Banksy Artwork

    Bristol – Banksy Artwork

    This artwork was stencilled onto this wall on Frogmore Street in Bristol by Banksy in 2006. My photo is from 2013, after the artwork was vandalised with a paintball gun which had fired blue paint at it, but before it was attacked with black paint. It’s five metres up from the floor, which required Banksy to erect scaffolding and the council discovered the artwork when they removed that structure.

    Although Banksy had been painting on walls in Bristol for some time before this, the artwork gave the city council a challenge. They were against graffiti on buildings, but the works produced by Bansky proved popular with locals and they were of a higher quality than much of the other graffiti that was scrawled onto walls. So, in this case, the council went along with it and it has remained in place since.

  • Bath – Views from Bath Abbey

    Bath – Views from Bath Abbey

    Just photos from a few years ago, from the roof of Bath Abbey which can be accessed as part of a behind the scenes tour of the building.

         

  • Bath Abbey – William Oliver Tablet

    Bath Abbey – William Oliver Tablet

    This lengthy memorial tablet is to the memory of William Oliver (1659-1716), a medical pioneer who was the uncle of William Oliver, also a medical pioneer from the city, who invented the Bath Bun and Bath Oliver. He was buried in Bath Abbey, which is where this tablet remains in place today.

    This William Oliver spent some of his time as the surgeon responsible for Lord Monmouth’s army, something which would have rather an innovation at the time.

    His tablet reads:

    “In memory of William Oliver MD FRS. He was descended from the family of Trevarnoe, in the County of Cornwall. While he was prosecuting the study of physick in foreign universities. The miseries of his country called aloud for a deliverer. He was ambitious of contributing his might to so great a work. He came into England an officer in King William’s Army in 1688. He was appointed physician to the fleet in 1693 and continued in that station till the year 1702. He was appointed physician to the hospital for sick and wounded seaman at Chatham in 1709 and in the year 1714 he had pleasure to have his old fellow sailors committed to his care. He being then appointed physician to the Royal Hospital at Greenwich in which honourable employment he died a bachelor on 4 April 1716. His love to this city, where he practised physick many years appears in his writings”.

  • Langley – Name Origin

    Langley – Name Origin

    And, since I’ve written about the origins of the place name of Hardley, here’s Langley since they share a village sign. Back to The Concise Oxford Dictionary Of English Placenames.

    Langley, Norfolk. Langale in Domesday Book, Langeleg in 1201. 

    This one is easy for the dictionary to define as there are Langleys up and down the country, all nearly certainly derived from the old English ‘long leah’, or long wood, both of these words having Germanic roots. Confusingly, later on ‘lea’ came to mean an open area of land, just to make things complex.

  • Hardley – Name Origin

    Hardley – Name Origin

    Moderately intrigued following seeing the village sign, I went back to The Concise Oxford Dictionary Of English Placenames. I certainly know how to have an entertaining afternoon…. Anyway.

    Hardley, Norfolk. Hardale in Domesday Book, Hardele in 1115, Hardeleygh in 1268. Hard clearing, perhaps referring to hard soil. Some forms have halh.

    The ‘halh’ is the old English for cave, closet or corner, which has apparently slipped into the settlement’s name over time. Some of the area around Hardley is today marshland, so a hard clearing would make sense in this context.

  • Hardley and Langley Village Sign

    Hardley and Langley Village Sign

    I’m not sure that I’ve seen a village sign with two different village names on it, but this is the sign for Hardley and Langley. The two villages have somewhat merged together and their formal name is now ‘Langley with Hardley’, which were both historically separate parishes.

    According to the village’s own web-site, both parishes had their own council in 1894, but they were amalgamated in 1928. There was some debate about dropping the name of Hardley, but the residents of Langley must have been a vocal bunch, and so their parish wasn’t forgotten. The school districts had already been merged in the 1870s, so it looks like harmony prevailed in the end.

    The Hardley side of the sign has Hardley Church on it, along with birds and sweeping views of the landscape, whilst the Langley side of the sign has Langley Abbey and a wherry on it. All colourful and bright, a rather lovely village sign and it’s also been placed pretty much on the official boundary between the two villages.