We were passing Ottery St Mary, Devon, on our travels, and were pleased to see a sign to a pottery. Yes, there’s a pottery in Ottery. I started to consider its likely back-story…
There once was a lady from Ottery
St Mary, devoted to pottery.
If she saw a vase,
Wherever she was,
She’d say, “In my collection that’s gotta be!”
Well… you don’t expect anything too deep while I’m on holiday, I hope?
I like to think that the pleasing name comes from there being a lot of otters around, so making the area particularly ottery, but in fact the town lies on the River Otter. Confusingly, there’s also a River Ottery in Cornwall, but I can’t discover that either waterway is particularly known for its otters… in fact, the River Otter, according to Wikipedia, is unusual in having the UK’s only known breeding population of beavers.
They probably settled there just to confuse people.
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And the inspiration for probably the finest sitcom episode I’ve ever watched/heard – https://www.comedy.co.uk/radio/cabin_pressure/episodes/3/4/
Ha! splendid – thanks, Andy. I hadn’t come across Cabin Pressure, but there’s a clip here:
https://youtu.be/kmlXLU-1E6Y
Q