londonist.com Brent The most ancient borough name of all. Brent predates the Anglo-Saxons and even the Romans, and comes from a Celtic word meaning 'holy one' or 'high place'. A river of the same name still flows through the borough. It is…

londonist.com Bexley Recorded in Domesday Book as Bix, and later as Bixle (a good name for a breakfast cereal, wethinks), 'Bexley' translates as pasture by the stream — presumably the River Cray, which still flows through the area. ◆単語の…

www.bbc.com 'Ghost boat' containing human remains washes up on Japanese island Five corpses and two human heads have been discovered inside a shipwreck on the coast of Japan. The boat washed ashore on Japan's Sado Island, northwest from th…

londonist.com Barnet The borough of Barnet contains plenty of Barnets — High Barnet, Chipping Barnet, Friern Barnet, New Barnet... All derive their names from the Anglo-Saxon word 'bærnet', which suggests the clearing of woodland by burnin…

londonist.com Barking and Dagenham Barking is an ancient, Anglo-Saxon phrase, first recorded as Berecingas. The name either derives from a local chieftan called Bereca or means "the settlement by the birch trees". Dagenham is also ancient,…

londonist.com More than fifty years ago, the London Government Act 1963 received Royal Assent. It paved the way, two years later, for radical changes in London's political boundaries. The 32 boroughs that we still know, love and pay our co…

londonist.com Westbourne By now, you'll have grasped that anything ending in 'bourne' or 'burn' is likely to have something riverine about it. The Westbourne is no different, merely being a river that flows to the west of town. Connecting …

博多出張で聴いた歩行者用信号の音楽「とおりゃんせ」 これは天神様だからいかにも福岡にぴったりで、つい口ずさんでいたら歌詞が気になったので英訳してみます。 とおりゃんせ とおりゃんせ、とおりゃんせ ここはどこの細道じゃ 天神さまの細道じゃ ちょっ…

londonist.com Wandle This river, Wandsworth Town, the wider borough of Wandsworth, and the increasingly ubiquitous Wandle beer all owe their names to a person called Wendle, who controlled the land around here in Anglo-Saxon times. We know…

londonist.com Walbrook The Romans centred Londinium on Cornhill and Ludgate Hill, the two mounds rising either side of this river. The leading theory on the origins of the Walbrook's name is simply that it was a brook that ran through the …

londonist.com Tyburn This good old London name is infamous from the execution site, dubbed the Tyburn Tree, from which numerous malefactors could be simultaneously hanged. Before the gallows, there was the river, which still flows as a dra…

londonist.com Thames For purely alphabetical reasons, London's most important river finds itself near the foot of this article. Thames is perhaps the most ancient name in the London area, and undoubtedly flows back to some pre-Roman appell…

londonist.com Stamford Brook London's only river whose name sounds like a US politician (although we think Tyburn Gallows might have made a good Republican senator). This lost stream separated Hammersmith and Chiswick, and gave its name to…