Lake District(s)

[alexanderhoward]

Revisiting the QI 'E' series, I came to the 'England' programme, where Charlie Higson was flummoxed by the idea that there is only one lake in the Lake District.

The result of that programme was a demand that the term 'Lake District' be removed from the hills of Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness and that it be reallocated to Croydon:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22027322

My grump about the name 'Lake District' is the way it is applied to the whole National Park area, which stretches far outside the actual Lake District into the fells east of Edendale.  Perhaps the national park should have been called 'Rheged' - but hat would be wrong too.  The capital of Rheged may have been at the head of the Lyvennet valley in Westmorland.  What it is that bustling capital city like now?  Well, it is not London.

[suze]

As I understood it, no one really knows where the capital of Rheged was.  It may have been in the Lyvennet Valley, it may have been Carlisle, or it may have been Gatehouse of Fleet in what was to become Kirkcudbrightshire.

Carlisle is perhaps less unlike Croydon than the other two.  It starts with a <C> and it has a Wetherspoons, although similarities beyond that are not immediately apparent.  Colchester fits those two criteria too, and there have been unlikely claims that it takes its name from Old King Cole (Coel Hen), who was probably the founder of the Rheged dynasty.  It's actually much more likely that Colchester is named for the River Colne, on which it stands.

All the same, I feel as if I ought to support the idea that the Lake District is in Croydon and not where we all thought it was.  I like ludicrous things!