In a swathe of three Ordnance Survey maps, (no A4, Bert!) from the Thames to the Channel, across Kent and Sussex, leaving out a few I couldn't quite bring myself to put before this audience, all the furnace names, and some which are just farm names, there'sMorning Dawn, Heart's Delight, Moon's Green and Pizien Well,
Three Cups Corner, Pricklegate, Starnash and Honeyhills,
Terrible Down and Bouncer's Bank, Mumpumps and Muddles Green,
Trolliloes and Hazard's Green, Snarkhurst Wood and Plackett's Hole,
Nether Toes and Upper Toes, Scrapsgate and Brownbread Street,
Steven's Crouch, Glydwish, Socknersh and Peppering Eye,
Grandturzel, Snagshall, Bachelor's Bump,
Dean's Bottom and Great Job's Cross,
Horse Eye and Hankham, Crapham Down and Monkyn Pym,
Pigtail Corner, Pratling Street, Modest Corner and Walter's Green,
Shover's Green, Warmlake, and Hushheath,
Julian's Brimstone, Nizels and How Green.And, specially for the Mudcat, Cattering Wood and Catts Green.
Or, just out of the area, an address we turned down for my father's accountancy practice, Forger's Green.
Or there's Flanders and Swann, again, on the "SLOW TRAIN."
Miller's Dale for Tideswell...
Kirby Muxloe...
Mow Cop and Scholar Green...Nor more will I go from Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road.
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street.
We won't be meeting again On the Slow Train.On the main line and the goods siding
The grass grows high
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Troublehouse Halt.The sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate.
No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay.
No one departs, no one arrives
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives.
They've all passed out of our lives
On the Slow Train, on the Slow Train...Cockermouth for Buttermere...on the Slow Train,
Armley Moor Arram,
Pye Hill and Somercotes...on the Slow Train.
Windmill EndIt was with great delight that I found that the real Troublehouse Halt lay just down the road from Cirencester where my parents moved, close to one of the sources of the Thames.
And I have no idea what most of the names mean, and I don't want to know, because it is the sound of them that is the attraction. It always puzzles me, with such a great choice of names, that authors who invent placenames somehow don't quite make them sound real.
The Shambles: you omitted Piddletrenthide, which is one of my favourites in that valley.