This explains to me how J.R.R. Tolkien came up with place names in his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stories. Hobbiton is Hobbit town, Bywater is by the water, Lake Town is a town on a lake, etc, lol. 😂
Don’t worry. We don’t outside London. HS2 - marketed as linking the north to London - will now stop in Birmingham. Birmingham. That’s basically a London suburb already!
@@alexb6318 - Still better than here in the US. Unless you live in a major metropolitan area, you have to own a vehicle. The only remotely viable option for long distance travel (and by long distance, I mean more than 500 miles) that won't break your wallet is our rapidly decaying passenger train system. Flights are ridiculously expensive and chartered bus companies are mostly dead and gone. At least in Europe, your countries tend to recognize that public transportation is a benefit to society.
@@CrazyHorse11235In all seriousness, while matters outside of urban areas aren’t nearly as bad as in the US - if nothing else because there’s less country to have to drive over - things are still quite poor, especially in the north east. Train fares are extremely high, and train timetables are frequently disconnected from bus timetables. That’s assuming there are buses; in some areas - especially areas where the local devolved government doesn’t care to keep them running - services can be nominal or entirely absent. As you say, of course, on average UK public transport (even discounting London) is better than US public transport. Nevertheless, I feel the point should be highlighted that London is an immense anomaly, and that even if the rest of the UK is ‘better than’ the US, ‘better than’ /= ‘good’.
@@CrazyHorse11235 Large metropolitan areas, small cities, nearby rural areas, and vast rural ares between cities all need different scales of transit. A London tube network only makes sense for large metropolitan areas. Smaller cities can use surface trams like in Germany, and buses. This bus network can be extended to nearby rural areas. A national rail/bus grid connects the whole country including the vast rural areas. Regional rail and high-speed rail is effective until about 500 miles, in areas that have medium-sized cities in between. For huge rural areas like Spokane WA to Minneapolis MN, Eugene OR to Redding CA, St Louis MO to outer Los Angeles, buses on the existing Interstate freeways would be the most effective (but still wouldn't replace planes) -- these are the vast areas European transit doesn't have to worry about. All bus and tram routes need transit-priority lanes to give them robust speed (except in rural areas where congestion is not an issue, but even there they might need priority at certain town exits where cars line up).
Why, is there something bad about Mornington Crescent? And while we're at it, why does the line end in Morden, and I've seen no plans to even consider extending it south. Does the dense area end there? Are people in Morden bothered that it has a name similar to murder?
@@sluggo206”Mornington Crescent” is a game from the BBC Radio 4 comedy programme “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue”, and it’s a parody of overly-complicated board games; the kind where the first 10 minutes of play is explaining the rules… Although the rules vary from episode to episode (and sometimes change partway through the episode), the game always ends when someone announces “Mornington Crescent!”
Please excuse me, I must be on my way to The International Railway Station by the Church of Saint Pancras and the Memorial of the King by the Crossroads.
It's stuff like this that makes me realize people are just really bad at either creating or retaining imaginative place names. Go back far enough, and just about everything starts to sound like "Springfield" and "Newport" and "Lakeside." ("Oh, it's by the side of a lake? What are the chances?")
Descriptive names are just more useful than imaginative ones. Saying "turn left at the Big Chicken" is really hard to confuse when you see the Big Chicken because it is a very large chicken and there is no confusion. If you name something that doesn't mean anything they'll just invent a meaning anyways. What is an "Idaho" anyways? Nothing. Literally nothing. They made up the word completely, but everyone's drunk uncle will tell you that it's some native term for this or that.
I used to listen to comedy on the radio (BBC) when I was a kid. I well remember the voice of Peter Sellars intoning "Balham - Gateway to the South" and according to Wikipedia, the phrase entered common usage. I hope people are still reminded of it when the name of the station is mentioned. As an aside, have you done the District Line yet? I grew up in Fulham about 2 miles from Fulham Broadway station (which, in the '60s, had an excellent Italian run coffee shop where I learned of cappuccino and real pizza). I also learned not to even try to go anywhere if Chelsea was playing at Stamford Bridge. Neil Gaiman should be taking notes, right? :)
Could you do a longer one about any interesting bits that came up in your research? Not for every station but just ones renamed or where competing claims both make sense Great Videos
Bank is the station that services the bank of England in the city, Embankment is named after the rivers edge, specifically the bit that was built up as reclaimed land 😊
@@whophd temple is named for a church, which gave it's name to the Temple area of central London. Monument station is named for an actual monument to the great fire of London
Yes, that caused me some momentary confusion, especially given that Ms Draper did not then continue singing after a short lead-in from a popular song. 🤔 [is there an editor that we can talk to about continuity?] (🤭)
I love your videos. I'm certainly not an historian, but I used to live near Oval Station on the Northern Line. I always thought that the station was named for the Oval, for the oval-shaper cricket pitch adjacent to the station, & not for the road that surrounds it.
@@andyalder7910 You're absolutely right! Apparently, the oval road was laid in 1790 around a cabbage patch & market garden owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duchy later leased the land in 1844 to a subscription cricket ground. I stand happily corrected! Thanks.
My brain is about to explode. Thank you for the data overload. Praise God my ancestor chose to come to the colonies (at the time no wif of rebellion yet) (he may have been running from the mad Lord Protector or maybe a catholic king) in the late 17th century, when even merry old London was less name intense. 🤪
I feel like a lot of those names capture some moment in the history of the Metropolis frozen like a bug in amber. Any one could explode into a full video!
I'm an American who lived in England for a little over a year. Throughout all of my time spent living there, out of all of the many tube stations I travelled to, I was always so curious about how Elephant & Castle got it's name, because it's just so unusual to me! Why, after all, would there be an elephant (which are completely non-native to England) be paired with a castle (which are an inherent part of British culture)? Now, after all this time, I finally know! Thank you!
Indeed. We saw the film version of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe at Finchley Lido cinema and when they say "We can't do that, we're from Finchley" it got a big cheer from the audience!
Why is it called the Northern Line when so much of it is south of the Thames, especially the part where both branches are together. How about a video on how the LINES got their name?
![How The British Government Covered Up Evidence Of Atrocities [Long Shorts]](/img/1.gif)
This explains to me how J.R.R. Tolkien came up with place names in his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stories. Hobbiton is Hobbit town, Bywater is by the water, Lake Town is a town on a lake, etc, lol. 😂
Holy moly, that's a LOT of station names. I'm just jealous y'all have reliable public transportation...
Don’t worry. We don’t outside London. HS2 - marketed as linking the north to London - will now stop in Birmingham. Birmingham. That’s basically a London suburb already!
@@alexb6318 - Still better than here in the US. Unless you live in a major metropolitan area, you have to own a vehicle. The only remotely viable option for long distance travel (and by long distance, I mean more than 500 miles) that won't break your wallet is our rapidly decaying passenger train system. Flights are ridiculously expensive and chartered bus companies are mostly dead and gone. At least in Europe, your countries tend to recognize that public transportation is a benefit to society.
@@CrazyHorse11235In all seriousness, while matters outside of urban areas aren’t nearly as bad as in the US - if nothing else because there’s less country to have to drive over - things are still quite poor, especially in the north east. Train fares are extremely high, and train timetables are frequently disconnected from bus timetables. That’s assuming there are buses; in some areas - especially areas where the local devolved government doesn’t care to keep them running - services can be nominal or entirely absent. As you say, of course, on average UK public transport (even discounting London) is better than US public transport. Nevertheless, I feel the point should be highlighted that London is an immense anomaly, and that even if the rest of the UK is ‘better than’ the US, ‘better than’ /= ‘good’.
@@alexb6318 - Fair point and well said. I've only been to Europe once and it was a long time ago so my exposure is very limited.
@@CrazyHorse11235 Large metropolitan areas, small cities, nearby rural areas, and vast rural ares between cities all need different scales of transit. A London tube network only makes sense for large metropolitan areas. Smaller cities can use surface trams like in Germany, and buses. This bus network can be extended to nearby rural areas. A national rail/bus grid connects the whole country including the vast rural areas. Regional rail and high-speed rail is effective until about 500 miles, in areas that have medium-sized cities in between. For huge rural areas like Spokane WA to Minneapolis MN, Eugene OR to Redding CA, St Louis MO to outer Los Angeles, buses on the existing Interstate freeways would be the most effective (but still wouldn't replace planes) -- these are the vast areas European transit doesn't have to worry about. All bus and tram routes need transit-priority lanes to give them robust speed (except in rural areas where congestion is not an issue, but even there they might need priority at certain town exits where cars line up).
Old Street means old street? Have you any idea how little that narrows it down?
What I've learned from this is that Totta owned a lot of the area at one point in time.
Surely when you say "Mornington Crescent" the game stops and you've won?
Yes, this. (She was clearly excited when she got to it, too.)
Mornington Crescent should have been the last one.
Should have left Mornington Crescent until the end - any list of tube stations has to stop as soon as it is mentioned (Rule #12).
😉
Why, is there something bad about Mornington Crescent? And while we're at it, why does the line end in Morden, and I've seen no plans to even consider extending it south. Does the dense area end there? Are people in Morden bothered that it has a name similar to murder?
@@sluggo206”Mornington Crescent” is a game from the BBC Radio 4 comedy programme “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue”, and it’s a parody of overly-complicated board games; the kind where the first 10 minutes of play is explaining the rules…
Although the rules vary from episode to episode (and sometimes change partway through the episode), the game always ends when someone announces “Mornington Crescent!”
I'd explain more about Mornington Crescent, but I'm in nid.
@@stephenmstanleyis it more or less complicated than Go Johnny Go Go Go Go from the League Of Gentlemen?
Hang on, hang on … … you got to Mornington Crescent *without* leaving yourself in Nid?
That’s just NOT on … !
The Welly you put into Mornington Crescent suggests you're a ISIHAC fan 🎉
Your British Citizenship is revoked if you fail to do so lol
"Embankment means embankment." I like how some of these are exactly what they sound like.😅
Please excuse me, I must be on my way to The International Railway Station by the Church of Saint Pancras and the Memorial of the King by the Crossroads.
Two and a half minutes of useless information (to me). I love this beyond all reason
Mornington Crescent wasn't valid, you were clearly in Nidd!
It's stuff like this that makes me realize people are just really bad at either creating or retaining imaginative place names. Go back far enough, and just about everything starts to sound like "Springfield" and "Newport" and "Lakeside." ("Oh, it's by the side of a lake? What are the chances?")
Descriptive names are just more useful than imaginative ones. Saying "turn left at the Big Chicken" is really hard to confuse when you see the Big Chicken because it is a very large chicken and there is no confusion. If you name something that doesn't mean anything they'll just invent a meaning anyways. What is an "Idaho" anyways? Nothing. Literally nothing. They made up the word completely, but everyone's drunk uncle will tell you that it's some native term for this or that.
I used to live in Morden, my mate called it Mordor!
"East of the hill by the mill" ought be used in a nursery rhyme- tis a lovely sound!
The next station is clapham Common. Doors will open on neither side for passenger safety.
🎉 impressive!!! Wahoo. Bravo. Encore (oh I can do that myself).
I used to listen to comedy on the radio (BBC) when I was a kid. I well remember the voice of Peter Sellars intoning "Balham - Gateway to the South" and according to Wikipedia, the phrase entered common usage. I hope people are still reminded of it when the name of the station is mentioned.
As an aside, have you done the District Line yet? I grew up in Fulham about 2 miles from Fulham Broadway station (which, in the '60s, had an excellent Italian run coffee shop where I learned of cappuccino and real pizza). I also learned not to even try to go anywhere if Chelsea was playing at Stamford Bridge.
Neil Gaiman should be taking notes, right? :)
Yes, I can’t hear Balham with thinking of that 🙂
Could you do a longer one about any interesting bits that came up in your research? Not for every station but just ones renamed or where competing claims both make sense
Great Videos
Jago Hazard has a LOT of good videos that dive into the history of different stations.
Didn't know London has an Angel station, Prague has one too (Anděl) and it's also named after a pub with the sign of an angel :)
@Makhiel You've never played Monopoly?
@@Poliss95 monopoly has different streets depending on the country
@@Poliss95 Nope, Monopoly was never big in Czechia (and I probably wouldn't've played the UK version regardless)
Still struggling with Burnt Oak 😂 seriously though High Barnet is the highest land between London and York.
What a wild assortment of names, eras and languages
Whew! Amazing how some are obvious and so many were total surprises!
I'm never not confused about Embankment versus Bank
Bank is the station that services the bank of England in the city, Embankment is named after the rivers edge, specifically the bit that was built up as reclaimed land 😊
@@sayuri429xx wait, so Temple isn't a Monument? I was heading for Embonument.
@@whophd temple is named for a church, which gave it's name to the Temple area of central London. Monument station is named for an actual monument to the great fire of London
Please do the Waterloo and City line
The Oval Tube station (1890) was named after the Oval Cricket Ground (1845)
Concur although the oval road was built around 1790 and named The Oval before the cricket ground existed, so the ground takes its name from the road.
That's so surprising to me! I honestly thought the stadium was called that because... well it's in an oval shape
@@XtremeGoose So did I until I looked it up today.
That Feeling When your hat is far too nice to worry about the key screen. 😁
Your computer is having an amusingly difficult time deciding how much of your kerchief to keep in the picture.
Also, technically Battersea Power Stations (A and B) Station
There is stuff after Mornington Crescent?
According to the first edition of Finch's Rules, yes. But not according to the Amended Revised Edition (second printing).
Yes, that caused me some momentary confusion,
especially given that Ms Draper did not then continue singing after a short lead-in from a popular song. 🤔
[is there an editor that we can talk to about continuity?]
(🤭)
@@southron_d1349 I assume there was still an Extension Period of the First Kind in effect.
This topic just screams for a collaboration with Jay Foreman.
I love your videos. I'm certainly not an historian, but I used to live near Oval Station on the Northern Line. I always thought that the station was named for the Oval, for the oval-shaper cricket pitch adjacent to the station, & not for the road that surrounds it.
Cricket ground was named after the road though.
@@andyalder7910 You're absolutely right! Apparently, the oval road was laid in 1790 around a cabbage patch & market garden owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duchy later leased the land in 1844 to a subscription cricket ground. I stand happily corrected! Thanks.
My brain is about to explode. Thank you for the data overload. Praise God my ancestor chose to come to the colonies (at the time no wif of rebellion yet) (he may have been running from the mad Lord Protector or maybe a catholic king) in the late 17th century, when even merry old London was less name intense. 🤪
The map ate your hat 😂
Have you done Waterloo and City line?
I liked it but I have already forgotten every single one
I love how entire towns in london get their names from just the local pub at the time
How many takes did 'east of the hill by the mill' take?
I used to live in Tooting Bec and I had read somewhere that bec meant hill, but I could be wrong.
GOODGE
District Line. Eastern half 1st, if you _must_ do in 2 parts.
(Edit: forgot my manners. Thank you very much, for this edition, and in advance.)
0:41 had a good flow.
I feel like a lot of those names capture some moment in the history of the Metropolis frozen like a bug in amber. Any one could explode into a full video!
Well done for sorting out the sound glitch on a previous short :) good job on this one.
Who is Totta?
I think in the 19th Century Totta (or totter) would be a street vendor, like a rag and bone man. Maybe..
It sounds like a Saxon name - probably some local nobleman at one time.
Just this guy, you know?
@@JimBob4233 Hey Dr Halfrunt. How's business these days?
@@cholten99 Not so good
Mornington Crescent!
Embankment means embankment??????
Just who was this Totta chap?
This is so funny to my American brain
Well now you’ve gone and done it. 😅
I’ve no choice left now but to go back and listen to the Manfred Mann’s Earth Band album, “Angel Station”!
💖
Do Waterloo and City next
😂😂😂
Damn, you beat me to it😂
District Line next, please! (Love these!)
I'm pretty sure Oval is named after the nearby cricket ground, The Oval - Isn't it?
I'm an American who lived in England for a little over a year. Throughout all of my time spent living there, out of all of the many tube stations I travelled to, I was always so curious about how Elephant & Castle got it's name, because it's just so unusual to me! Why, after all, would there be an elephant (which are completely non-native to England) be paired with a castle (which are an inherent part of British culture)? Now, after all this time, I finally know! Thank you!
I have always assumed that the Elephant and Castle was a representation of an elephant and howdah from India.
@@Oligodendrocyte139 Yes you're correct. Probably drawn by someone who'd never seen one.
Well I think elephants signify power so a very powerful lord lived in that castle lol and later on a pub was built there
Look, if something confuses about England, there's a solid chance that a pub is behind it all. That's just common sense.
If my memory is correct the Pevensie children (Chronicles of Narnia) came from Finchley.
Indeed. We saw the film version of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe at Finchley Lido cinema and when they say "We can't do that, we're from Finchley" it got a big cheer from the audience!
Elizabeth line?
Old Street: Not a new street
An excellent guide series for anyone watching/reading Neverwhere.
Mornington Crescent
IMPRESSIVE 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
I rode the new Victoria Line. People were upset that there was no conductor so a quasi conductor was installed. Lol.
Excellent I love the floating head (greenscreammm!)
doesn't seem to be an actual green screen tho, more like some sorta filter thing that clearly can't parse a pretty bandana thingy
Thanks! I've been playing Watch Dogs Legion, so this is quite riveting.
these are starting to sound like made up gibberish and im like 1/4 through
"They made me a present of Mornington Crescent: They threw it a brick at a time."
Heeheeheehee, Goodge🤣🤣🤣🤣
That *is* a fun name, must be said.
Why is it called the Northern Line when so much of it is south of the Thames, especially the part where both branches are together. How about a video on how the LINES got their name?
The southernmost line is the Northern Line (which is clearly two lines in a trench coat).
You should watch Jay Foreman's explanatory videos, in which he answers that question and more about Unfinished London.
@@WyvernYT Jago Hazzard also has some excellent videos on the subject.
Jubilee please
Whatever one has Piccadilly Circus
Just curious, did you do the line that has Paddington Station ?
The quality of this line was superior to your other two! Much appreciated! Wonderful job! Love your work!
Excellent stuff. Metropolitan next?
What about one of the newer lines Contrast history links and new culture X
Your hat was fooling your greenscreen
Love these, keep 'em coming!
Collina also refers to a cliff or rock in Latin.
Do we get a test on all this later?
DC Metro Green Line, please
British Lady, you're the best
Not coal miner's wood?
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤🚋
This is really funny. I think I like some of the name explanations better than the actual name itself. 😂
DLR!
Why are so many streets called High Street?
High Street is the main street in any community. (So like Main Street in the US.)
Also, they often tend to be on or go up hills, making them... y'know... higher than other places.
I noticed some of the names there a slight unsure after saying 😊
Your head keeps flashing in and out
East of the hill near the mill
It sounded fun to say 🙃
How about the New York City subway? For old times' sake. The Colonies and all that...
123rd street 123rd street
I'm not from around there so can you tell me, is the Pub With The Elephant Holding The Castle still in existence?
Not anymore, but there is still the statue.
Street names in London named after commoners
Please do the district line next
Man, some of these names are old.
🙏🙏🙏Prayers given .
A masterpiece!
Love it!
I love you❤
Victoriaaa!!!!
Met line!