Posted by Robert Hill on 04/12/00 from 129.11.153.35 via proxy proxy2.leeds.ac.uk:
In Reply to: Re: Tea Bay posted by andy clayton on April 11, 2000 at 18:21:13:
About 5km north of Bigland Scar, the 1:50000 map also shows Bigland Hall
(grid reference SD 355832) and Bigland Tarn. Turning to maps at the
larger scale of 1:25000, I don't have one which extends as far south as
B. Scar, but I do have one which covers B. Hall and B. Tarn, and
within one or two km of these places it also names Bigland Heights,
Bigland Woods, Bigland Barrow and Bigland Allotment.
I first noticed Bigland Hall and Tarn on the map a few years ago and
connected them with Young Billy's remarks. I've been meaning to
mention them in this thread since it started. But my computer is at
work and my maps are at home, and each night I forgot to look them up,
until Andy Clayton's message imprinted the matter more strongly on my
mind.
These places are south of the south end of Windermere and to that extent
correctly placed for Young Billy's remarks. I imagine AR was conscious
of the real Biglands when deciding what name to use. But there does not
seem to be any real town, village, hamlet or parish called Bigland, and
AR might indeed not want to attach the suggestion of dishonesty to a
real settlement. The nearest villages to the real Biglands are
Backbarrow and Haverthwaite.
I have always imagined the literary Bigland to be a town - whose
approximate real-life equivalent might be Ulverston or Barrow - so that
Young Billy's remarks can be taken as meaning "The country folk round
here can be trusted, but in the town there are some who are less
honest."
The Ordnance Survey's online gazetteer (which lists all places named
on 1:50000 maps) also finds a Bigland in the Orkneys, and three places
in other parts of Cumbria with Biglands (rather than Bigland) in their
names: Biglands (NY 2553), Biglands House (NY 2061) and
Biglands (SD 5597). Of these three the first two seem to be near
Wigton and I haven't yet checked them on an actual map. The third one
appears to be a house in or neear the village of Patton Bridge,
6km NE of Kendal.