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Macabre Place Names

There's a gathering of houses (barely even a hamlet) on the Fen in Lincolnshire called Tongue End. Used to drive through it a lot during driving lessons, as it lay between our village and the testing centre at Spalding.
 
On the subject of strange place names, there's a Trow Green in the Forest of Dean. Trow is what the modern English "Troll" is derived from.

Trowbridge in Wiltshire is not etymologically related, the Trow in that is a small type of ship that used to be common in the West of England.
 
Spudrick68 said:
I have probably mentioned this before, but in Lancaster there is Golgotha Heights. At one point it is supposed to be near where the gallows were when they were on the moor above the city.
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Is that where a replica gallow with mannequin was erected on the moor as an attraction ? The dummy body got stolen, just leaving the head. Then the head.
 
Spudrick68 said:
I have probably mentioned this before, but in Lancaster there is Golgotha Heights. At one point it is supposed to be near where the gallows were when they were on the moor above the city.
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Reminds me of the Gog Magog hills near Cambridge.
Apparently, where the city of Troy was...
 
I'm not sure about the theft or the gallows TBH as I am originally from the Preston area.
 
Gloucestrian: Isn't the english word troll just from the scandinavian word troll?
 
Xanatic* said:
Gloucestrian: Isn't the english word troll just from the scandinavian word troll?
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Yes. However ... According to Wiktionary, 'trow' is an anachronistic Scottish term for 'troll' (folkloric figure).

To further complicate things, 'trow' can be traced back to multiple precedent terms. These include a boat (as Gloucestrian notes), trust / faith / belief, and also the Old English 'treow' (tree). It's this last ('tree') version that's commonly cited as the source for 'Trowbridge' (i.e., a felled tree serving as a bridge).
 
Edinburgh Council's released a big list of how streets got their names. Highlights include :

During the 17th century, alleged witches from the Queensferry area were taken to Ferrymuir and burned. Helen Thomson, Marion Dauline, Marion Stein, Marion Little and Isobel Young were among those accused (taken from research by the Queensferry History Group). William Wallace Fyfe wrote about the subject in "Summer Life In and Around South Queensferry" in 1851. These names have all now been used for street names in the area.

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/news/article/12705/residents-encouraged-to-name-new-streets

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/26785/bank-of-street-names
 
I had a look at the article @Tribble - site of an old bakery was named Bethlehem Way. I never knew Bethlehem came from either Hebrew Bet Leḥem (“House of Bread”) or Arabic Bayt Laḥm (“House of Meat”)
 
Spudrick68 said:
I'm not sure about the theft or the gallows TBH as I am originally from the Preston area.
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They topped a distant relative of mine there,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Barlow
Some of his bits are spread about the country and I keep thinking I should try to visit,
a barbaric way to go, at the very least damned unsporting on the part of authority.
 
RaM said:
They topped a distant relative of mine there,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Barlow
Some of his bits are spread about the country and I keep thinking I should try to visit,
a barbaric way to go, at the very least damned unsporting on the part of authority.
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You're related to a saint?
That's quite a unique something to chat about at dinner parties!
 
Mythopoeika said:
You're related to a saint?
That's quite a unique something to chat about at dinner parties!
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Don't ever think about it till the mention of the gallows at Lancaster reminded
me, the gallows are gone, there's a bloody big rock to mark the spot with a
plaque but it's very hard to find, usually hidden by very long grass.
 
Not macabre but still remarkable: Grinder, Norway:
(Seen while searching for a traffic webcam.)
1624712521415.png
 
There is a Redhills lane in Durham, supposedly named after it ran red with the blood of Scottish soldiers after the battle of Neville’s Cross
 
On a different, but potential more macabre note, in the Wiltshire portion of the New Forest, we have

LOVER

The post office closed a few years back; used to be popular at Valentines for the postmark...
 
JaneD said:
There is a Redhills lane in Durham, supposedly named after it ran red with the blood of Scottish soldiers after the battle of Neville’s Cross
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I used top live on the other side of Flass Vale from Redhills! Thank you for reminding me :)
 
Anonymous said:
...reminds me of "Hob Lane" in Quatermass and the pit...I think there's one of those on the outskirts of Bury somewhere. Oh, and there's Boggart Hole Clough...strange name for a park...
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I can’t believe I haven’t seen this thread before.

There’s a Hobb Lane not far from where I live Hobb Lane, Moore, every time I drive past it reminds me of Quatermass and the Pit; The favourite movie of 10 year old me.
 
Timble2 said:
A bit late...

This thread seems to have returned after a long pause and as I was flipping through the earlier posts I spotted this




It reminded me of something. There are at least two Dangerous Corners in Lancashire one near Atherton just outside Wigan, the other also near Appley Bridge, again not far from Wigan. There is legend attached to one of them, I’m not sure which, that goes something like this:


A long time ago a countryman took a young wife. Suddenly, after a few happy years of marriage the wife fell ill and died.

On the way to the graveyard, as the hearse rounded the corner, the horse started, the driver jerked the hearse, an the coffin slid to the ground and burst open at the feet of the mourning husband who was following behind.

His wife stirred, then woke, the countryman was overjoyed – his wife wasn’t dead but had fallen into a deep trance, from which the shock of the fall had woken her

They returned home and spent many more happy years together. Eventually in her old age the wife died.

Once more the husband followed the hearse to graveyard.

As they rounded the corner the husband and other mourners heard a spectral voice:

‘Take care, coachman, for this is a DANGEROUS CORNER.’
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The story is for the Dangerous Corner that is the T-junction of Corner Lane and Westleigh Lane in Leigh; It’s the main road between Wigan and Atherton, that eventually takes you to Bolton. One of my friends lived about 100m from it when we were younger. He once lost control of his car on this corner when I was a passenger and crashed into the, thankfully empty, bus stop.

I remember doing a history lesson on local legends when in high-school where we learned about this, and many others.

Here’s the location on Google Maps https://goo.gl/maps/HyPYnqhY9BGfAAwf6
 
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