Tuesday 5 September 2017

Lansdown(e) what's in a name...



Mrs O'Blene and I were chatting over a tincture recently, and discovered that the name 'Lansdowne' appears so many times in our short lives, we wondered why!

As well as the original park in Canada, (above) there's a hotel in Brecon, a road in both Bedford and Bury St Edmunds, both in which Mrs O'Blene in her tender years, melted the younger male establishment, and the list goes on...

We have a myriad of Lansdownes in the UK, and undoubtedly abroad as well, but it makes me wonder, if the original old boy just might have had a bicycle to get around...


7 comments:

rvi said...


Don't they play wugger at one of those establishments?

My (non-British) wifeperson often asks me as we go gallivanting hither and yon why so many places all over the (Commonwealth) world seem to be copies of the originals in the UK. I have no answer to give. We were recently in NZ (again!)and on our meanderings came across a very old town named Cromwell. Very pretty with a beautiful lake attached. Those who read going-postal.net will have been entertained by a very interesting posting last week about a famous 17th century figure of the same name. One wonders if there just might be a connection?

Scrobs. said...

I'll Gurgle the place and report back, Reevers!

The Irish place is the rugby HQ, and well known for shares in Guinness...

rvi said...

Oops! Wrong island...

The Cromwell I was referring to is in Taamaania not NZ. It is reputed to be the oldest town on the island.

Apologisations for misleading the customers. :-(

rvi said...

Tasmania - sticky fingers today!!

Electro-Kevin said...

No idea.

Scrobs. said...

I'm somewhat confused here, Reevers, like Elecs, I have no idea, but there again, it is Monday, and the shock of a new week is dawning...

rvi said...

Hah! Nothing to be confused about for either of you.

All I was pointing out was the regularity with which explorers, colonialists, settlers and other travellers of yesteryear no matter where they eventually settled seemed to like being reminded of home by naming their settlements after places in the UK from which many of them probably came originally. The other thing they all did was name places, buildings, roads, ports etc after prominent people of the time (who were usually foreign immigrants to the local populace).