Tag: place names
-
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.
-
Giants in the landscape: did people explain big things with big people?
I gathered 331 giant places in Britain and Ireland, from Giant’s Graves to Gog Magog. Giants own graves, not mountains, and Ireland’s 212 Giant’s Graves are no bigger or more prominent than the tombs around them.
-
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.
-
Fire on the Hills: how fast could the Armada beacons carry the news?
I traced the lines of sight between 193 hills named for a beacon and lit a fire at the Lizard. On the names alone it never leaves Cornwall; fill the gaps and it reaches London in 9 hops.
-
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.
