Angels' Wings, Clipped While U Wait

[steepholm]

I'm just back from an examining job in Winchester. (It was an overnighter, so I'm a bit behind on LJ.) While there, I took the opportunity to meet with an old housemate from York who's part of the English faculty, and over lunch he mentioned that he lives on Sleepers Hill (no apostrophe).

Now, I grew up just 12 miles from Winchester, so I'd heard of Sleepers Hill. I'd always assumed that its name alluded to a legend about mythical heroes-in-waiting, or at the very least a nest of indiscreet Russian spies. Apparently, however, it refers to the trees that used to grow at the top, which were chopped down to make railway sleepers for the line running from Winchester to Southampton. Quite interesting from an industrial archaeology point of view, I suppose, but a little prosaic.

The next hill along is called Oliver's Battery. As a child I was told this name commemorated a Civil War gun emplacement. Perhaps though it will turn out to memorialize an electrical supply shop run by Mr Oliver?

Sometimes it's better not to ask.

Comments

[kalypso]

I quite like the Sleepers explanation - something to do with it being unexpected yet sensible.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

New constructions in our area tend to be named for whatever was torn down in order to build them. Thus there is a relatively new shopping center down the hill named Cherry Orchard, it having replaced the last remaining one of these in this once fruit-rich valley.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That seems rather poignant. Perhaps, when a more enlightened age dawns and they replant the orchard, they'll call it The Shopping Center? We can only hope so.

[sheenaghpugh]

There's a pub in Cardiff called the King's Castle, which does not refer to a chess game, nor indeed a real king. There was a stream, now mostly diverted or underground, near it and it used to be in a bend of this stream; apparently such a bend in a stream was known as a king, and the mound of raised ground that formed in the bend was the "castle". Oddly enough though, this raised ground, the only bit for miles, was used in the civil war to set up Oliver's guns that bombarded Cardiff Castle.... how such things would be forgott, did not such idle fellows as I pass them on!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

King's Castle does seem almost deliberately obfuscatory. There's clearly room for a gazetteer of Places that Sound Interesting but are Actually Dull. A surprise Christmas bestseller?

I suspect there are as many Cromwellian gun batteries as rooms Elizabeth I slept in, scattered around the country. I couldn't resist checking Oliver's Battery on Wikipedia, in the end, and it tells me that it was actually too far from the city to have been practical as a place from which to pound Winchester, though Cromwell may have used it as a camp. On the other hand, there is an Iron Age hillfort there! Which was news to me.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I'd be very tempted by a book of Places that Sound Interesting but are actually Dull. Almost any Welsh place name would qualify. Non-Welsh speakers think they sound romantic, but they are usually just a prosaic description of the location. :)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Most Anglo-Saxon placenames are the same. I suppose they evolved as a shorthand way of giving directions. "Where can I find Ethelraed's camp?" "At the enclosure with the thorn trees [Turnworth]. You'll know it when you see it."

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the time my father asked for directions in some English town and was told "Turn right just after the sleeping policemen [i.e., speed bumps]." He had no idea what on earth that could possibly mean. First guess was a pub name. Fortunately he had the guts to ask again for clarification.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

:) I trust he was familiar with zebra crossings, at least!