"New Town"

[XmisterIS]

Or "Newbury", "Newburgh", "New Rd", etc ...

It has always struck me that it is particularly unwise to name a place "new", given that time passes and one day the said new thing will be old.

Newbury is a case in point - it is now approximately 950 years old ... somebody wasn't being the sharpest arrow in the quiver when he got his quill out and applied it to a nice, new, shiny bit of parchment. Or perhaps velum. Probably velum. And possibly not shiny either.

 

[Brains]

New Zealand and New York are going to look silly in a millennia or two, as for Newcastle, it looks silly now

 

[XmisterIS]

New Zealand and New York are going to look silly in a millennia or two, as for Newcastle, it looks silly now

And where exactly in the UK is "Zealand"? I've never figured that one out ...

 

[Fnaar]

And where exactly in the UK is "Zealand"? I've never figured that one out ...

It's in Denmark.

 

[XmisterIS]

It's in Denmark.

Yes, I know, it's the island that Copenhagen is built on ... BUT ... New Zealand was a British colony, so one presumes it was named after a place in the UK. It's a conspiracy of some sort!

 

[MossCommuter]

Yes, I know, it's the island that Copenhagen is built on ... BUT ... New Zealand was a British colony, so one presumes it was named after a place in the UK. It's a conspiracy of some sort!

Zeeland is in Holland...

...clever map-makers them Dutch

 

[Fnaar]

Possibly because the Danish one also has wallabies in it. Probably.

 

[Fnaar]

Actually, there's a Zealand Drive in Canvey Island. I bet it's named after that.

 

[XmisterIS]

Zeeland is in Holland...

...clever map-makers them Dutch

So it was originally Dutch until the English went out there and beat the Dutch colonists with big sticks until they threw up their hands and wailed and told us we could have it instead?

 

[Norm]

Yes, I know, it's the island that Copenhagen is built on ... BUT ... New Zealand was a British colony, so one presumes it was named after a place in the UK. It's a conspiracy of some sort!

Conspiracy of ignorance?

Tasman (you may have heard of him, he was a devil-ish explorer ) was Dutch and was the first European to discover it in the mid 17th century. Britain didn't take control for nearly 200 years after that.

I was always rather tickled that the Isle of Wight version of Newport was a town in the middle of the island, whereas Newtown is not only over 1000 years old but is on the edge of a huge natural harbour.

Old Windsor probably dates back to the 8th century, against which New Windsor is appropriately named being around 300 years newer and dating to William's castle which was started around 10 years after the Norman conquest.

 

[Archie_tect]

Newcastle's new castle had the centre knocked down by the Victorians to build the Great North Eastern Railway... can't beat the Victorians for their love of antiquity. Now EH won't let you build anything within sight of a listed scheduled monument.

 

[HLaB]

Oh I thought you meant something like Milton Keynes, Glenrothes or Cumbernauld (what's it called , a Scottish joke). Actually I never realised there was so many 'New Towns'; the Welsh one is actually called Newtown, well it was new in 1967

 

[Ajay]

It's a sobering thought, how bad must life in Liverpool have been for a move to Skelmersdale to seem like a good idea?

 

[Toshiba Boy]

The pub in a village I used to live near to was called "The Old New Inn", I suppose at some point somebody opened another New Inn and they decided to change their name.

 

[Fnaar]

"Young" Mr Grace from "Are you being served?" wasn't young either. In fact he was quite old.