EVERY town has quirky nicknames for local landmarks or areas that the community has carried on for many years.
Reading is no different with 'Smelly Alley' in Union Street being one of the many fond nicknames that has lasted generations.
Now, researchers at the University of Reading (UoR) and Museum of English Rural Life (The MERL) are hoping to find out more about local nicknames.
Teams are particularly interest in looking at the informal place names that have been coined by children due to their surroundings.
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Historians want people to complete a survey on the local lingo. This can be names children are using now, or names adults remember using when they were young.
Researchers hope the findings will show what aspects of the landscape matter most to young people and how they relate to it.
Dr Jeremy Burchardt, an expert in rural history at the UoR, who is leading the project, said: “Nicknames invented by children are often amusing, but even those that seem abstract or mundane on the surface can be incredibly revealing about how they feel about places, particularly feelings that are hard to articulate.
“There has been a lot of research into how adults relate to their environments, but very little on children.
"This project will create a much-needed record of place nicknames to help us see the world through the eyes of children and ensure it adequately serves them.
"It will also help fill gaps in our knowledge of how landscapes have changed over time.”
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The project is funded by the MERL's Ditchfield Fellowship.
Contribute to the survey at https://merl.reading.ac.uk/merl-collections/research-projects/childrens-landscapes/.
The research got us thinking, are their any other nicknames for places in Reading, that have stood the test of time and lastest generations. Let us know in the comments.
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