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Macabre Place Names

Just the other side of the Edinburgh city bypass from where I stay is 'Burndale' - a small stream (burn) in a valley (dale). Except -

According to a local minister, about 140 years ago:

There was a farmhouse, on land belonging to the local 'Family' (in the 13th-14th century). And the 'laird's' daughter was having a passionate (!) affair with a monk from the abbey a couple of miles down the road, and her nurse, instead of caring for her charges moral welfare, was also bonking a monk. The two ladies would ride out from the 'house' to the farm to meet their amours, who would walk from the abbey, and convince the farmer (presumably with a little cash) that they should have use of the house. One night, the young lady's father followed her, and was so horrified by what he saw throuh the window that he set fire to the farmhouse, killing all 4 inside. The farmhouse was rebuilt, but became known as 'Burnt Dole' (burnt offering), until the Victorians sanitised it as 'Burndale'.

Well, if it ain't true, it should be!
 
The road i live on is called 'Gallows Lane' Because they used to hang poeple on the crossroads here.

I also live near the A666 which has a creepily high death rate.

:(
 
Lockhart said:
The road i live on is called 'Gallows Lane' Because they used to hang poeple on the crossroads here.

I also live near the A666 which has a creepily high death rate.

:(
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I always shivered when travelling this route!

...A666.... to Hell?

...Wondered if I would ever get there!:)
 
Pull yourselves together! It only leads to Bolton. Scary in itself, maybe,
but I survived daily commuting along it for a couple of months.

I do remember a slight shudder when I glanced down at the
dashboard while at a junction on that very road and observed that the
last three digits on the milometer were also 666.

Nothing happened. :D
 
I also recall a road called "No Man's Heath", though I've no idea why.
 
There's a restaurant called the Old Slaughter House at Knights in the Bottom near Weymouth.


Well it frightens me :D
 
What frightens you, Old Slaughterhouse or Knights in the Bottom?
 
Lets just say I find Nun Hills and Nuneaton less worrying
 
intaglio said:
There's a restaurant called the Old Slaughter House at Knights in the Bottom near Weymouth.


Well it frightens me :D
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I certainly wouldn't like Knights in my . . . better not go any further . . .

Carole
 
On the coast of North Carolina (and where the Wright Bros.) first flew is a place called Kill Devil Hills. Nearer to home, we have the Devil's Tramping Ground.
 
Baggrave Hall

"Baggrave Hall is an attractive Georgian mansion near South Croxton, Leics, yet there has been a house on the site since the 14th century, and the remains of a deserted village nearby. Yet it is the story of how Baggrave got its name that makes the unusual name even more unusual!

The story goes that while the lord and lady of the house were away, a maid gave refuge to a female traveller who turned up at the door. But once inside the maidservant noticed that the stranger was wearing heavy boots - and she decided this was a man in disguise, taking the chance to commit robbery while most of the household was away.

So the maid plied her visitor with wine until he was insensible - then cut off his head. This she put into a bag, which she presented to her employers when they returned home, all ready for burial. And so Baggrave earned its name".

Leicester Mercury 12/3/02
 
In Carlow in Ireland, there is a place called Fredericks Park, however, the Irish is actually Parc Fear Dorcha with literaly translated means field of the dark man, or the Devil as he was also know.

So it should read Devil's Park. No idea why it is so called.

LD
 
Re: Baggrave Hall

Papa Lazarou said:
"Baggrave Hall is an attractive Georgian mansion near South Croxton, Leics, yet there has been a house on the site since the 14th century, and the remains of a deserted village nearby.
Leicester Mercury 12/3/02
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In North Hertfordshire there is the little village of Bygrave, the name seems to be Early English, meaning: "by the trench". And, while there are mediaeval moats on top of the hill, there are also earlier diggings so far un-excavated......
 
trauma 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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is the quatermass movies coming out on dvd?
just out of curiosity.
 
between queenstown and kingston in new zealand, there is road called the devils staircase, its the only to traverse between the towns via vechile.
i have know idea why.
in winton new zealand, there is a rest area at a cemetary, complete with user pays barbeque.
minnie dean, the first woman and last person to be hanged in new zealand was hung and buried there, unmarked grave but the council put weedkiller on it to make it seems "evil"
 
Within driving distance, I have two roads named Shades of Death.
One of them (in New Jersey) was named after a malaria outbreak that occured when the nearby swamps were drained for farmland. It wends through desolate darkness between looming, stony ridges and sprawling meadows. Then on past Ghost Lake, on whose waters misty forms can supposedly be seen to play on certain nights.
 
Just as a matter of interest, and not really related that closely to this thread ...... but ..... there is some interesting reading out there on H P Lovecraft, author of macabre tales in the very early part of the last century .... as the link below describes him ....

"HP Lovecraft ~~~ one of the 20th Century masters of the Gothic tale of Horror"

The man himself said:
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
- H. P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"




http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/lovecraft.html
 
Anyone else noticed the alarming tendency to change names with any macabre connotations to something vacuous?
Good eample is a pub on the main road south of Shepton Mallet, Somerset: the road itself is called Cannard's Grave Road, and the old pub thereon was called Cannard's Grave Inn, and had a splendid pub sign, that of a silhouetted man in a gibbet against the backdrop of the local landscape at sunset. This pub is reputedly haunted (mentioned in Antony Hippesly-Coxe's "Gazeteer of British Ghosts" or possibly "Haunted Britain"..anyway)by the ghost of the self same Cannard, a local highwayman gibbetted at the nearby crossroads a few hundred years ago. A great bit of preserved local folklore.
Except, last time I was there (admittedly a few years ago) the pub had been renamed "Cannard's End", painted in jocular colours and the sign was something so banal I can't even remember it: God knows what it looks like now.
Anyone spotted it lately?

Also , Marion mentions the plague pit under Lewis's in Broadmead, Bristol (now replaced by House of Fraser) - I remember hearing about that, too; my grandfather worked nearbyat that time, and it was a hot topic of conversation in his offices; not sure if it ever made the papers, though. Even more worrying is that the basement of Lewis's used to be the food hall!:eek:
 
I have vivid memories of being on holiday somewhere in the back of beyond when I was about thirteen, and encountering a pub called the Bucket of Blood. Neither I nor my parents can remember where we found this establishment, and nobody ever believes me when I tell them it exists :( , so if anyone has heard of this place could you please tell me where it is!

For further background - apparently the name came from a local legend about a well that ran with blood following a witch's curse, and the sign depicted a group of villagers standing in horror round the well head and looking into the bucket that had just been hauled up.

Any help appreciated!

Razorwire
 
There's a place in Lancashire called todmorden, which i believe comes from (latin??) for death murder
 
Yep, now i think of it, it probably is of some ancient germanic origin - never was much kop at languages.
 
razorwire said:
..a pub called the Bucket of Blood...
Razorwire
Click to expand...
..is in Cornwall, near Hayle.

I've mentioned it before in fact - there used to be a thread about interesting pub names.

Here it is!
 
rustyfunk said:
There's a place in Lancashire called todmorden, which i believe comes from (latin??) for death murder
Click to expand...

A friend of mine, (thank's Kathy), who lives in the shadow of Pendle Hill, informs me that the name Todmorden is supposed to come from the Old English: Totta maere denu, or Totta's boundry valley.

Totta, being the name of the bloke who owned the land at the time!!!!!
 
Tod is German for death morden means to murder.This could of course be a coincidence .
In German Todesser is Deatheater. Unrelated i know but i felt like saying it...
 
The Bucket of Blood

rynner said:
..is in Cornwall, near Hayle.
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Aha! Thanks very much Rynner, I shall go back there and take a photo to show my doubting friends!


Razorwire
 
My BF used to play whena child next to a 'Stinky Brook' somewhere in Congleton, Cheshire.
He recalls a dreadful chemical smell and Dayglo orange tinge to the water and has recently begun wondering what exactly was in it...............
 
Not sure about the orange water at Congleton but the canals at
Worsley in Salford are the colour of tinned tomato soup, due to the
chemicals still pouring into them from the long disused Bridgewater
mines. There are many miles of these canal tunnels which have been
closed for years, though every now and then there are suggestions
that they might be opened as some sort of horrid attraction. :eek:
 
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