Mark Mason

British placenames

From Pendle Hill to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

British placenames are so good you can read the map for entertainment rather than navigation. Hardington Mande-ville, Bradford Peverell, Carlton Scroop — they sound like characters in a novel. In fact, P.G. Wodehouse often raided the atlas when writing: Lord Emsworth is named after a town in Hampshire, while a village in the same county gave Reginald Shipton–Bellinger his surname.

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