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Published: August 12th 2022
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Ahhh English. ‘Common’ topographical terms used on the maps and in the guide books I’m using at the moment include the following: a barton, a beare or beer (and no it’s not a drink!), a bury, a cleave, a combe or to further complicate things a coombe, a cott, a dean, a down or dun, a ham, a lan, a leigh, a lyn, a mew, nose and a mouth, a pil or pill, a stoke, a ton, a tout (but only used in Dorset), a warren, a wide or wake and then there are the particularly and specifically Cornish terms of bal, bod, bos, carn (a walker’s favourite in any language or spelling), Carrick, cos, close, ty, che, Dina’s, du, shut, envy’s or ennis, gwyn, hal, hen, hayle, ken, kernow, lis or liz, loe or looe, maen, margh, marth, Mel, vellan, mor, na, nans or nance, pedn,and a perran.
And if you think that didn’t upset spell check you are very wrong. I’m looking at a sea of red or translated into ‘commonly used topographical terms’ I’m looking at ‘coch mor’. Thanks goodness I’m not translating into pictograph format!
I was thinking of devising my first but historically popular
quiz based on these ‘commonly used topographical terms’ but in a quest to maintain a readership base greater than the number of fingers I’m typing with I’m playing safe and holding on for a while.
To some English that seems to make at least a little sense. I’m not a big advocate for determinative nomenclature, you don’t meet many Coopers that are barrel makers or Fletchers that are arrow manufacturers or even Bakers that are bakers. In fact I don’t meet any barrel or arrow makers but don’t spoil a good story with the truth. At least the determining of names for Lynmouth, Lynbridge and Lynton seem to make some sense. Lynmouth sits at the mouth of the Lyn River, Lynbridge is the actual bridge that fords the Lyn River and Lynton the town of the Lyn just above Lynmouth. These destinations are the sort of official start of our walk although we will walk a couple of small sections as ‘warm ups’ prior to our Friday commencement date. There are a few other good examples of well named locations but there are also some I’m a little concerned about. Great Hangman, Little Hangman and Scratchy Bottom!
Bizarrely
our walk will probably commence with a railway journey. We walked the the Tour de Mt Blanc without taking the cable car on Day 1 and we aren’t making that rookie mistake again! The railway from Lynmouth to Lynton is the steepest water powered railroad in the world. It’s not long but it is steep. It’s quite an intriguing system, less than a mile long but really an impress system. Opened in the 1800’s (admittedly in 1898) and water powered it should mean a pretty pleasant start. The map also shows the SW Coast Path meandering away heading towards Coombe Martin our first overnight stop. The path will take us via Great Hangman and Little Hangman. Despite some trepidation I’ll try and find out some details about the names. Great Hangman is the highest point on the entire SWCP and it marked by a rustic and very much ‘self made’ cairn. Walkers are encouraged to carry a stone there and literally dump it there.
Anyway, Caio for now.
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