Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter > History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library

The Exilian World Service

(1/2) > >>

Jubal:
Right, the idea of this thread is as follows; each member gets one and only one post, in which they can go into as much detail as they like about their home town, village, or region. (If someone's already done your town/village, do the region, and vice versa). We then get loads of interesting info about interesting places, in theory. Note that if you're not keen on people knowing where you live you can do another place you know well, or even not give the name of your town. Do include lots of history, local politics, geographic features of interest, and so on.

PLACES;
Tottington, Near Manchester, UK (Son Of The King)
Lopham, South Norfolk, UK (Jubal)

Son of the King:
Seems like a good idea, don't know why there hasn't been any. I shall begin.


I live in a middle-sized village (I presume its a village, even though its basically an extension of Bury nowadays) called Tottington, about 2 miles from Bury (at least I think it is... Its about 40 mins walk away). I think I might officially live in Walshaw, but only by about 10 metres, the boundary used for deciding which polling station my parents (and soon me) have to go to is the stream which runs next to my garden.

The first mention of Tottington in the history books is, I have been led to believe, a reference to Brookhouse Bridge in the Domesday Book. This may or may not be true, and I can't remember who told it me. Anyway, "Tottington" means "Tota's people's village" in Old English apparently.

Tottington was a large farming township in the middle ages, and part of the larger area of The Royal Manor of Tottington.


--- Quote ---Tottington, (the ROYAL MANOR of) extends from Tottington-lower-end to the N. of Eatonfield chapel a distance of 9 miles
Tottington, a large township in the parish of Bury, distinguished by the higher and lower end, and together composing the "Royal Manor of Tottington," the higher end of which is to the E. of Edgeworth, and to the W. of Shuttleworth; and the lower end, to the N. of Elton, and the W. of Walmesley
--- End quote ---

Enough random mumblings anyway...

Some interesting facts about Tottington, and interesting places there.

* I live there

* Holcombe Hill is the main landmark looking North from where I live, and I can see Peel Tower on top of it. Peel being Robert Peel who came from nearby.

* Whitehead Gardens - This memorial garden exists in memory of the people who died when a stray bomb hit a row of cottages here in WWII. The blast from the bomb smashed windows and did other minor damage in a lot of the surrounding area as well.

* The Lines - An old railway line that ran from Greenmount (I think) into Bury, before connecting with the main line. It was one of the first DC electrified railway lines in the world, and now is part of the Kirklees Valley Trail. The viaduct crossing a lodge (reservoir) is still intact, and forms part of this trail.

* The mills in Kirklees Valley contributed to the growth of Tottington in the 19th century, and Lowry (I think) painted a painting of the entrance of one of them.

Jubal:
Good info, I hadn't noticed you'd posted that! I should do my area too.

Lopham Ford

Lopham Ford used to be a village called Lophamford in its own right which is recorded as having had a market cross and is shown on maps from the 1500s. It is also recorded as having had the Duke of Norfolk's jail there. It must have shrunk and disappeared by the 1720s to 30s when it stops appearing. South and North lopham to the north still exist.

The ford is the watershed of the Little Ouse and Waveney rivers, and thus the main crossing-point between Norfolk and Suffolk; if the ford (formerly a ford, now there's a road over it) did not exist Norfolk would technically be an island. This has given the place importance through the ages, and archaeological finds date back as far as neolithic axe-heads. On either side of th force the gorund was once very marshy but the channels were dug much deeper and straightened at some point (one historian hypothesised that some straightening was Roman era but this seems very unlikely).

The ford was considered to be strategically important up to modern times as well as having been a trade route. In World War Two, mines were planted under the road in case the Germans landed in Norfolk. The mines could be detonated, pushing the enemy tanks into the wooded and marshy areas on either side where they would be unable to manouvre. The fenlands on the west side were used as a bomb-testing range too. They are now one of the homes of the rare Fen Raft Spider, Dolomedes plantarius.

South Lopham

South Lopham has a few important points of historical interest.

Firstly its church is very old, with an old Norman tower in the centre and some parts even possibly being Saxon. The central tower is a slightly unsusual and interesting feature, as most churches have the tower at one end. In addition, it should be noted that the towers of North Lopham, South Lopham and Redgrave (which is just south of the ford) form a perfect straight line. Whether this is by accident or design I don't know. History-wise it was given to monks from Thetford by Henry II; this was presumably reversed in the dissolution of the monasteries.

There is a Roman villa in Lopham, although it has never been fully excavated. Apparently it includes a bath suite and some mosaics, though. South Lopham has therfore probably been more or less continously inhabited from the Neolithic to the present; certainly Stone Age, Roman, Saxon, and Medieval stuff is all very much present there.

Wonders of Lopham
The last thing in Lopham is its three "wonders" - hardly the 7 of the ancient world, but they impressed locals in the medival era. One (usuall yhtird, but I'll get it out the way as it's the least exciting) is the ford itself; two rivers appearing with 9 rather flat metres of ground between them is really pretty unusual, it has to be said. The other two are the selfgrown style; this was a tree that actually grew perfectly into the right shape to be used as a style and was thus built into a fence and used as one. The tree has now been cut down, sadly and there are no records as to where it once stood. The last wonder has survived rather better, though it's sitting in a field somewhere and I've never seen it myself. This was the Oxfoot Stome, and it has a little local myth around it.

Apparently in early medieval Lopham a wondrous cow/bull appeared. I say cow/bull; it appeared as a bull but had teats and gave milk as a cow would - and it gave amazing quantities of milk, enough for the whole village and more. It could pull ploughs better than any normal beast, and so all the work was done in half the time, for it needed no guid to plough the fields. Eventually the people of Lopham found that they had so much cheese and milk that they could eat no more. So, they loaded cheeses onto a cart and took them all to market. They tasted amazing, and sold very quickly. They then found that they had vast amounts of money, which they spent of course on ale, which came home by the cartload. The whole village gathered around the cow and started drinking and merry-making for days. However, whilst everyone was stiff drunk they had forgotten to tend to or milk the magic cow; all of a sudden it gave a great bellowing roar, and broke out of its field. As it left - never to be seen again - it stamped in a rock, so hard that it left the imprint of its hoof deep in the stone. This is the Oxfoot stone, and it serves as a reminder not to get carried away with success. If you wish for a boring explanation, it seems likely that the "hoof-print" is actually the imprint of a bivalve fossil, but nevertheless it's a good story.

So, that's Lopham I guess. Anyone else gonna post?

Oxtocoatl:
I live in Helsinki, the glorious capital of a land called Finnland.

Helsinki was founded in 1550 by swedish king Gustav I Vasa, originally ment to compete with baltic as a harbour for russian merchants. The city, however, remained small and poor until 1809, when tsar Aleksander I, by the request of his best frend Napoleon, seized Finland and moved its capital to Helsinki, which is closer to st. Petersburg.

Not long before the russian conquest had the swedes completed the mighty fortress of sveaborg (Viapori in finn.), wich raised the citys political status considerably. Aleksander and his successors also built the city great and filled its centre with palaces and cathedrals. (Maybe filled is not the quite right word, but they built a lot of stuff.)

In 1917, when the russian empire collapsed and Finland gained the long waited independence, Helsinki remained as the capital. When an open civil war broke out between the social classes, Helsinki was taken over by the working class. When the civil war was practically solved after the white (higher social class, the rich people) emerged victorious in the fierce street fighting at the battle of Tampere, Helsinki remained the last red (socialist) stronghold, until it was captured with the assistance of german troops (There are still bullet-sized holes in the door of the finnish national museum).
Yet Helsinki remained the capital of the finnish republic.
When the soviet union invaded in 1939, Helsinki was bombed several times. It also served as the headquarters of marshall Mannerheim, who lead the finns in several battles, which the russians felt humiliating (and for a reason). When the Mannerheim-line in the Kareliya eventually broken, Mannerheim spared Helsinki from conquest by signing a peace-treaty, in wich the soviet union gained "enough land to bury their dead."

Helsinki is located on the southern coast of Finland. It has a population on half a million souls, wich is very high, remembering that the entire Finland only holds the population of c. 5 000 000 people. Helsinki and the surrounding countryside covers all the farming-suitable land in Finland. As the capital it naturally holds the govermental buildings and the presidental palace.

Not much is really left to tell. I live there. The public rapid transit network sucks. And that should be it.

Hopit:
can I believe my eyes? other Fin?!?!?! :o

--- Quote ---Helsinki and the surrounding countryside covers all the farming-suitable land in Finland.
--- End quote ---
that's wrong tou...
ja selv

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page