Tag: British history
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Where the Devil lives: Britain’s Devil place names, mapped
I mapped 107 Devil place names in Britain. 31% lie within 1 km of a prehistoric monument, against 19% of comparable places; saint-named places sit by churches and holy wells instead.
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Haunted, or just old? What Britain’s ghost stories say about its buildings
I set 260 reportedly haunted places against Britain’s 40,409 most important listed buildings. Haunted buildings are barely older than their kind, but castles are 9 times and inns 9 times as common among them, and churches almost vanish.
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Here be dragons: do Britain’s dragons live by the church?
I put 26 named dragon legends and 135 Dragon, Drake, Worm and Serpent place names on the map. The legends cling to the parish church (77% within 1 km, against 55% of comparable places); barrows, hillforts and rivers barely matter.
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Gallows Hill: where Britain put its execution places
I measured 340 Gallows and Gibbet names on the OS map against fifty ordinary places each. They sit near towns but outside them, beside main roads, on low rises rather than high hills; the boundary story is faint.
