Ottery St. Catchpole / Mrs. Figg

[Florence]

No: HPFGUIDX 22785

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Steve Vander Ark" <vderark at b...> wrote:
> I've been on vacation, camping along the shores of Lake Michigan, 
> basking in 85 F. sunshine and of course, working on the Lexicon. So 
I 
> haven't had time to keep up with a lot of discussions around here. I 
> will toss a couple of notes into the fray here, though.
> 
> 1) Ottery St. Catchpole - The "Ottery" part of the name refers to 
the 
> fact that it's a village along the Otter River, which Ottery St. 
Mary 
> is as well. We can safely narrow the location of the Burrow to that 
> area, then, and along the river as well. My atlas of Britain doesn't 
> show the river, so I can't be more exact (I'm going to have to find 
a 
> better atlas, I think). 
> 

Agreed the "Ottery" part of this sounds very Devonshire, however I 
feel I ought to point out that "Catchpole" has very strong Suffolk 
associations.  There was a famous book "Margaret Catchpole" about an 
Ipswich lassie, and I always understood the name to be almost 
exclusive to Suffolk.  Suffolk also has a few villages of the 
something-St-Someone format, but I'm not aware of a river Otter there. 
or any other landmarks that might give rise to the "Ottery" suffix.
As a county, Suffolk is similar in many ways to Devon, but less hilly 
(although not totally flat as some people think), and most 
importantly, on the opposite side of the country.

Florence
(Also just back from holiday, and struggling to catch up)