Quirky things about where you live

[BobISMyUncle]

I have discovered, quite accidentally, that I live in a recently designated Market Town. I love this! We have one market stall, on a Saturday. It sells trousers. Sometimes, it sells plants. Sometimes it sells tartan stuff. On Thursday, but might be Tuesday, it sells fish. Sometimes, none of the above is true.
We're a Market Town now!! Do not be messing with me, I've developed webbed feet

@SimonJT yes - there was a fascinating thread a while back started by an observant Jewish mumsnetter where there was chat about the big group holidays.

(Actually live just north of town but I'm pretty sure nothing has ever happened where I live!)

[quote FreezerBird]@SimonJT yes - there was a fascinating thread a while back started by an observant Jewish mumsnetter where there was chat about the big group holidays.

(Actually live just north of town but I'm pretty sure nothing has ever happened where I live!)[/quote]
I visited a friend at university one summer, it was sadly the year a Rabbi drowned, so I think I remember it more due to that.

@DustyasaFieldinSpring Nope, doesn't sound like you're near me!

In my London postcode there used to be a house with a huge door and not many windows. I've since discovered that the Old Bill used to question IRA terrorists there. It's now part demolished and has been converted to flats.

People from my town "are officially the friendliest people in Britain. An internet-based survey once carried out by the British Society for the Advancement of Science put us top for warmth, care and consideration".

@ammary The Malverns/Great Malvern?

@DialSquare We come from the same place! The thing that intrigued my uni friends who came to stay was not the long pier or the explosive - ridden wreck but the street signs. They were enchanted by the fact that all the road names were mounted on a long white pole, with the name in black on a horizontal white board at the top. And actually thhinking about it I have never seen street signs like that anywhere else.

We hung the monkey!

@dillydallydollydaydream7

We hung the monkey!

How is H’Angus doing these days?

I live in a suburban housing estate. A few doors down from me a family keep a rooster in their garden!

@MrsMoastyToasty

We have a Bristol postcode Our postal town is Bristol We have Bristol dialling codes for landlines

We aren't in Bristol. We are in another county entirely. Our town has been in Somerset, then Avon and is currently in Bath and North East Somerset.

Our doctors surgery is in a former chocolate factory. The new road leading up to it has a Latin name.

I think I know where you mean. It begins with a K? I live not far from there

@Savvyblonde

My town hosts the biggest UK participation sporting event each year. More people take part in it than the London Marathon but it seldom gets any press coverage.

am guessing maybe you somewhere in Newcastle area? Great North Run?

@SabrinaThwaite haha he is good! Still wondering how we confused him for a spy - poor thing!

@Clatford

Near me is a wide concrete apron off a country lane, sheltered from view because of the lay of the land and some strategically placed hawthorn bushes.

What is quirky about this site is that an escort parks up there some days for ‘car meets’ with her clients.

How do I know?

Because on her rather brazen webpage is a picture of her kneeling down on the back seat taking it doggy style with our house and treeline visible in the distance.

Intrigued...How do you know that her website shows this!!!???

Surely you don't trawl local hooking sites and no neighbours would have mentioned it to you and owned up!

@Clatford

Home of the UKs 'roswell' ufo incident in 1980

@Rachie1973

I’m from Lyndhurst in the New Forest which is ‘quaint’ anyways, but being a ‘villager’ along with the rights of the commoners I know all the little bits that aren’t in the tourist books.

The hidden orchard deep in the forest where their used to be a cottage, all the old charcoal burning pits.

Being close to Southampton city also gives us 2 tides a day.

My parents still live in Lyndhurst.

@Twernip I've just seen your later post about it being Sussex, so different county.

My village is famous for the treacle mine legend - no idea what or where they are or why it is a story at all.

It is nonsensical whimsy, and if you ask any longstanding villager, they knowingly wink, touch the side of their nose and its so frustrating!

My theory is that it was something silly to make the village sound more interesting, because it isn't.

We do have an ancient barrow though which is much more interesting.

@Monty27

My neighborhood has declared itself as a village! Top that in sarf east London. It ain't no village 😂

Is it Kidbrooke? That really isn't a village

I thought Dulwich

This is a fascinating thread - I'd love to hear lots more; also those of people's (or their neighbours') individual houses.

Near where I live, there's a 17thC pub with a cellar that was used as a holding pen for criminals who were sentenced to death by hanging - they were then taken outside to be hanged. King Charles II also drank there whilst resting during the Battle of Worcester.

One of the quirkiest, most wonderful villages I know (I don't live there, but I'd very happily do so) has its own water supply, completely separate from the regional water company's mains supply. It also has the world's smallest detached house, which Uri Geller bid for when it last came up for sale. It has a road designated as a Quiet Lane (including a phenomenally steep, winding hill that would likely mean instant death for any caravans and/or clutches of the towing car, should anybody dare to do so!).

Quirkiest of all, the village name has been spelled over 60 different ways. It still has two different spellings used on different local road signs; however the locals call it by an entirely different name altogether that bears no resemblance to its actual name.

Absolutely beautiful village - wonderful place.

We have possibly the most ridiculous statue in the history of the world in the middle of our high street. He's called the DandyLion

I think you'll find a load of Scousers disagreeing with you on that! A hybrid of a baby sheep and a yellow fruit - what could possibly be odd about that?!

That’s a great pub quiz question - especially when you ask who was the first person to use it?

No offence to the upper classes or their staff, but I hate butlers! A lot of people don't really realise just how old cashpoints are. I always used to find it endearing when certain considerably older people would avoid using them, considering them 'too new-fangled for people of my generation to get used to' - when those people would have been no older than 40 or so when they were first introduced!

A nearby house is built on the site of a priory. Nothing special about the house but enter the cellar and be amazed. A huge, vaulted space, noticeably ecclesiastical in style, complete with it's own well.

That's a good point about the street signs @Timeforatincture. I've never noticed them elsewhere either!

We have a very famous castle visible from the upstairs window (largest in England), it has tunnels that connect all under the town that were used as air raid shelters during the war, two of the tunnels even connect to my old school. Also some very old roman bits and very many shipwrecks, a couple of which are visible at low tide. Our town hall is old and grandiose too, DD and her friend once snuck all the way up to the old bell tower and apparently it was very spooky.

Also very extensive ww2 bunkers than you access if you get a key off this random man who locked them all up for protection. A huge Napoleonic fort too. I also once saw some people have a threesome behind the bus station.

I'm absolutely loving the idea of Peterborough having their own special dance that nobody else knows about - and being responsible for a tiny little spike in sales of singles for an otherwise-unknown-in-the-UK musician!

It sounds like a concentrated version of when David Hasselhoff decided to launch his career as a pop singer. The USA said "Really, David? Just stick to the acting, why don't you"; the UK cringed for him and implored him to "have a word with himself"; meanwhile, Germany said "Oooh, we'll have you - to us, you're just like Elvis, only with far more music ability and charisma!!"

There is a Moravian Settlement in the middle of the very average town where I live. Protestants from the Czech Republic fled here 200 years ago and settled. They set up their own community with a church, school, shops etc. It is still occupied today. All the streets are cobbled. I would love to live there. They use the settlement for films and TV programmes, ie Peaky Blinders. Even Michael Portillo has visited it on his train programmes.