Walks and Unusual Place Names

  • Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.

Tengu

Full Member
Jan 10, 2006
12,805
1,532
51
Wiltshire
Down in Cornwall there are many interesting place names.

(And Farm names `Come to good` `Little Regarded` `Penny come quick` `Cost is lost` and down a maze of lane we find, much to our relief `Enquire the way`.)

`Playing Place` The english name for a Plen an gwarry (Also a place name) which is a medieval open air theatre. (You can find a rare survival at St Just)

`Stampas` Tin stamps, a mining name (And the mine names are a study in themselves)

`Shop` in a cornish placename refers to a blacksmith I think

Some names are cornish, some are english and some are anglisiations of cornish names.
 

John Fenna

Lifetime Member & Maker
Oct 7, 2006
23,136
2,874
66
Pembrokeshire
OK - near Plumstone Mountain in West Wales there are the ruins of a farm who's name translates as either"Start Naked" or Stark Naked" - it is near another spot glorying in the name of "Beware of Stranglers" ... anyone beat those?
 

copper_head

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 22, 2006
4,261
1
Hull
Always thought thought Roseberry Topping sounded delicious but is in fact a very small mountain.
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
There's a village not far away from here called Crook of Devon, always think it should be twined with Thief of Baghdad. Then there's the Burn of Sorrows and Glen of Tears.
Think the one that confuses most folk is Yetts of Muckart.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 

Harvestman

Bushcrafter through and through
May 11, 2007
8,656
26
55
Pontypool, Wales, Uk
World's End is a crossroads near Grosmont in Monmouthshire. Oh, and Wales is a district of Stoke on Trent.

Like John Fenna, I have been to Halfway (and it isn't halfway to or from anywhere, oddly) and been on Lord Hereford's Knob :D
 

boatman

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Feb 20, 2007
2,444
4
78
Cornwall
Mawnan Smith, Cornwall, was named for the blacksmiths working in the village and there is still one there these days. Clever man he made me some small spearheads and straightened out a sword.
 

Palaeocory

Forager
Nothing ilicits more giggles from me then driving by 'Toot Hill Butts' :)

My husband and I have a favourite game, usually done while rambling along in the countryside... we make up potential British placenames to sound both as ridiculous and possible as we can. For example, "Upper Snippington on Thames", or "Marbly Bottom"...
 
Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump is a well visited place in Alberta. A cliff over which many thousands of buffalo were driven in old times to kill them for food. A translation from the Blackfoot language.

We have numerous places which English might find unusual, none of them on maps in english language but known to us such as

"Place of the starved village"

"Dead Innuit crossing place"

"Sick place, or place where you feel sick"

And many more

Missippissistinsitanua!
 

BCUK Shop

We have a a number of knives, T-Shirts and other items for sale.

SHOP HERE