Today's County in the Spotlight:Part 2

[mickthemaverick]

Difficult to recognise, but easy to look up, and talked about in the pages of the FCF, currently in the dusty archives of 2019. https://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/ ... 28#p599528

Regards Neil

I'm surprised that the Americans didn't call him Wild Bill Horlick!!

[mickthemaverick]

I managed to track down another picture of the WH bus on a site which is worth a browse in its own right:

https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/w ... 50s-697158

[NewcastleFalcon]

Whichever way you look at it the Source of the River Thames is in Gloucestershire, whether that's the Ordinance Survey or Environment Agency Officially recognised site at the spring at Thames Head, or a possible alternative source at Seven Springs on the Thames first tributary the River Churn.

Nicely covered in this short read with pictures
https://www.britainexpress.com/counties ... s-head.htm

From 1958 to 1974 a statue of a river god dubbed 'Old Father Thames' stood at the Thames Head site. It was then moved to St John's Lock near Lechlade. The statue was made to stand in the grounds of the Crystal Palace for the 1851 Great Exhibition.

So I think we can allow ourselves a pic of Old Father Thames and a singalong with the song a 1933 recording by Peter Dawson is original enough for me!



Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Since the subject of the Source of the Thames has emerged I remembered a weekend we had away in Lechslade a few years ago. We went down on the Friday and stayed at the New Inn Hotel in the high street:

BFTW

It was quite unusual in that a number of the rooms were in the old stable block running down from the back of the main building to the car park:

BFTW

Our room was 2/3 of the way down with the original stable door:

BFTW

It was very comfortable indeed and I especially appreciated the walk down through the car park to the grass bank beside the Thames. Once there looking to the right, upstream, you see Lechlade bridge about 100 metres away. The bridge marks the end of the navigable river for cruisers, beyond it is juat man propelled craft.
We picked the hotel, well I picked the hotel, for one simple reason which won't surprise the FCF faithful reading this:

BFTW

Just along the High Street from the hotel was Old Bell Antiques, which is a shop visited a few times by Henry Cole in his various trading programmes, where we had a very entertaining hour chatting with the owners while looking round the extensive shops and yard.
We had a very pleasant time and may well repeat the weekend soon

[NewcastleFalcon]

I'm going to conclude my Gloucestershire with a little bit of Filton, a little bit of RAF Fairford, both Gloucestershire, and an integral part of the Concorde Project;
a little bit of a Rover SD1 with a Bristol AE Vehicle Registration Area Code;

and one Brian Trubshaw, who could have appeared on Lancashire's day in the spotlight seeing as he was born in Liverpool, or indeed Carmarthenshire's day seeing as he was brought up in Llanelli, or indeed Hampshire where he was educated at Winchester College.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Thanks for all the contributions to Gloucestershire
__________Gloucestershire Done___________
Time to select Tuesday's County of the day

Only 7 left now...
1 Devon 2 Durham
3 Huntingdonshire 4 Kent
6 Renfrewshire 6 Stirlingshire 7 Tyrone

Random Selection number/County 6 Stirlingshire for Tuesday.

Definitive map
https://wikishire.co.uk/map/#stirlingsh ... 34/zoom=10
City
Stirling (county town)
Towns
Bonnybridge, Bridge of Allan, Denny
Falkirk, Grangemouth, Kilsyth
Milngavie (extends into Dunbartonshire)
Stenhousemuir

Welcome to Stirlingshire from the Kelpies

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

A lively flag for Stirlingshire:

BFTW

Details here.

The location:

BFTW

250px-Stirlingshire_Brit_Isles_Sect_2.svg.png (37.4 KiB) Viewed 73 times

For places to consider see Neil's post above.

[Gibbo2286]

Too quick for me on the Gloucestershire close down Neil, I intended to include this man from Berry Hill Coleford.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Po ... 6%29.%20

[mickthemaverick]

Too quick for me on the Gloucestershire close down Neil, I intended to include this man from Berry Hill Coleford.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Po ... 6%29.%20

I have taken the liberty of adding your link to my already cheeky post of your picture Gibbo to get it into the Gloucestershire day. I hope you don't mind!

[Gibbo2286]

That's fine Mick...............I'm always a bit late for these things.

[NewcastleFalcon]

A look at the definitive map of the Historic County, sees Stirlingshire reach up the right hand side of Loch Lomond, reach up and beyond Ben Lomond and well and truly enter "no road" territory. The lochside road ends about here at Rowardennan, being the gateway to Ben Lomond, and having a carpark, a youth hostel, a holiday park with lodges, hotel, bunkhouse, boat moorings and a B&B guest house, plus of course the pathway to Ben Lomond.

Against the background ot the Youth Hostel, here are the Vehicle Area Registration codes for Stirlingshire. Just 2 of them MS and WG. Should be easy enough to find now that we have had a bit of practice

Stirlingshire Vehicle Registration Area Codes pre-1974
Rowardennan Youth Hostel Loch Lomond Stirlingshire

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Too quick for me on the Gloucestershire close down Neil, I intended to include this man from Berry Hill Coleford.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Po ... 6%29.%20

The Singing Detective is getting a re-run on BBC Four coming up shortly.

As we approach the finish line I've been moving the Counties to a specific day rather than leave them open. I reckon by the time myself or Mick have put in our final contributions for the day, unlikely that any others will be forthcoming.

So all being well today is Stirlingshire, leaving 6 to go from Wednesday and the thread will be all done and dusted by Monday 4th July . I am sort of hoping that Durham will be the final one selected, seeing as that was my stomping ground for my growing up. I won't engineer it though, the random hand has selected each of the 86 Counties so far, and the major honour of being the last one will be determined at random too. (well the second off last one will be, the last will be an inevitability!)

For today, Stirling's most dramatic building made it to the UK A-Z Part 2 Commemorative Stamp issue in
2012 (April 10 2012). The only other Stirling Special issue stamp would appear to be Stirling Moss, but I'm not sure whether the derivation of his name comes from any family connection with Stirling

https://www.collectgbstamps.co.uk/explo ... bstamps-31

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

We've been here. Now I think if I was the Camping and Caravanning Club I would have filmed it on a brighter day
Saying that when we camped there there was a tremendous thunderstorm, and it was generally damp!



Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

As Neil implied the number search is getting more efficient every day! Stirlingshire's commercial fleet came up with both answers, the second one by text!!

BFTW

BFTW

[mickthemaverick]

My first visit to Stirlingshire was for my attendance at an OU Summer School held at Stirling University for the M101 Mathematics Foundation Course in the 1970's. On arrival my instant reaction was good, the campus being a collection of relatively new buildings surrounding a beautiful lake in the front of the plot. Behind the hills rose up to the Wallace Monument standing proud overlooking the city:

BFTW

BFTW

The student accomodation was typical of the era:

BFTW

and the student's rooms within that building were of a standard design, identical to the student's bedrooms at The BT Training College at Yarnfield nr Stone in Staffordshire:

BFTW

Unfortunately that very similarity was the cause of an exceedingly embarrassing incident for me on the last night of our summer school. As was the norm for OU summer schools the last evening in residence was dominated by a 'course over' party usually held in the university's students common area. In the case of Stirling it was held in the on campus nightclub which was housed in one of the original buildings well away from the students accomodation. So after a brilliant evening and maybe the odd beer too many I retired to my room, stripped and crashed onto the bed.

A while later my bladder awakened me and I opened my eyes recognising my room at Stone, an all male facility! So I got off the bed opened the door and set off down the corridor to the communal loo at the end. Just as I got there the door opened and out came a gorgeous girl who presumably had just returned from the nightclub!! Panic!! I decided that hiding my face so she could not recognise me was probably better than covering my manhood as when you've seen one.......... She burst into giggles and went past me and along to her room and I finished my business and crept back to my room hoping for no further meetings. I made it and went to sleep! Luckily I didn't bump into her the next morning and I was very glad to depart at lunchtime and head home!! I wonder if she has ever told the story? Hmmmm!