Bon Voyage John P

[yeldew]

John,

Great to have met you again on this week's Nat Rams walk around Dean's Bottom.

Bon Voyage back to Massachusetts today.

Norman.

[nuduke]

OK, I just can't resist...

walk around Dean's Bottom

Who's Dean?
John

[jbeegoode]

Here we go again.

Dean's not here.
Your turn Eyesup,
Jbee

[eyesup]

OK, I just can't resist...

walk around Dean's Bottom

Who's Dean?
John

Not only "who", but how large. Which will determine how long the walk is.

Duane

[John P]

Thank you Norman. It was just a week ago that we were in Dean's Bottom, yet it already seems quite remote! Now I'm back in Massachusetts, the weather is considerably warmer(!!) and I'm thinking a little swim in a nearby pond would be very welcome. But to keep the memory alive, here's a picture of our group walking along, and then dining at the "Bull" in Streatley:

[eyesup]

Is that a picture of "Dean's Bottom"?

Looks inviting and also like a crop field.
A long stretch off into the distance for an afternoon hike.

Duane

[John P]

I asked afterward where exactly "Dean's Bottom" had been, and the leader was a little vague about it! The crops we passed were rapeseed (they make canola oil out of it, ya know) and some kind of grain, which I'm too ignorant to identify. Barley, perhaps.

[nuduke]

Were you photographer in the pub pic, JohnP.  If not, which is you?

John

[John P]

I took the picture, so I'm not in it, but Norman "Yeldew" is the closest to the camera on the right. If you want to see my lovely self (and you should!) I'm in some of the pictures on the group website. I'm 3rd from the right in the group picture, and Norman is 3rd from the left.
http://www.justwearasmile.co.uk/natram/prog/NR2016/oldwalks16.htm#dean

[reubenT]

at first Dean's bottom might appear to have belonged to a million lb man who when laying on his front side would have created quite a mountain out of his bum to hike around on.  However on further examination it turns out to be a bottom as in river bottom or valley perhaps owned by someone named Dean in the remote past.  Tis a beautiful place to take a walk.

[nuduke]

Nice! Thanks for that, JohnP. Always great to put a face to our forum handles for those of us that feel able.  Even better to meet up.
John

[eyesup]

Whatever and where ever, it does look inviting. Also peaceful.

Pictures can be deceiving though. I remember seeing a photo posted on the TSNS site of a naked hike in the UK with an expanse of green fields to one side, and opposite a hedgerow was a busy highway.

Crop the road out and it would have been a different picture.

Duane

[Peter S]

Geographically a dean or dene is a wooded valley, so one translation of Dean's Bottom could be Balley Valley, a 'bottom' also being a low or valley area.

Peter

[nuduke]

Where we used to live in Surrey and around in the home counties there were loads of places called bottom in an oo-er double entendre way.
The best was Pratts Bottom but there was Locks Bottom and then other funny non-bottom names - corkers like Nork (Norks=UK slang for breasts), Effingham, Uppingham, Upper Dicker (not to forget Lower Dicker), Jeffries Passage and Titty Hill in Surrey and W Sussex.  As a result of this thought I looked to see if there's a website that lists the double entendre names in the UK and of course there was:  http://www.anglotopia.net/ultimate-list-of-funny-british-place-names/

I have to say that this made me laugh as there were a few that I have known all my life and never realised the funny connotations notably the little town in the Pennine hills which, phonetically spelled first - we pronounce as Penny-Stun but its spelt Penistone and seriously, I have never noticed the word Penis as a prefix, even when we passed the signs to it on the way home from a visit to Lancashire a few weeks ago!

Bottom is a common suffix in Lancashire surnames such as Ramsbottom, Winterbottom and Sidebottom.  For just funny & quirky names Lancs (e.g. Eccles, Diggle, Oswaldtwistle) is a fund, as is Yorkshire (Dirt Pot, Humpswaite, Blubberhouses) and Cornwall (you get the drift!) particularly.

And in closing I just wanted to pay homage to the huge number of small towns in the US that have quirky or funny names too!

John

[eyesup]

There is a small town north of Houston called "Cut and Shoot". There are many little places with odd names here.

Sometimes they pick names just to be different.

Duane