Category talk:Former populated places in the United Kingdom

Lost or deserted?

To my mind, a settlement that is "lost" is one which is known from documentary evidence to have existed in the past, but its location is unknown or disputed - for example, Pengwern (no doubt there are many better examples but that's the first one that came to mind). Most of the settlements in this category so far are not lost in that sense - rather, they are (wholly or partially) deserted, which is a different thing. Their locations are perfectly well known. For example, St. Brides Netherwent, where there are still a few houses but also the remains of a deserted village. The category also lists Trellech, where there is a modern village plus remains of older buildings outside the village, and the area of dispute as I understand it is the function of those earlier buildings. I know the word "lost" can mean different things (1. not traceable; 2. no longer in existence), but this category should define much more clearly what is meant. If both categories are meant, it's not really a very useful category. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment and interest. Huwmanbeing has been supportive and, from a purist point of view, I agree. Have a look at my response, however. There was already a cat "Lost settlements in Northamptonshire" which included abandoned villages, so that meaning of "lost" (no longer in occupation, location known or unknown) was already was already understood. Also, Dunwich is lost in any sense, although we know its location - as with various Dutch former settlrments.

There's already cats that cover various sub-groups of "lost" or "extinct" settlements: Sunken cities, Ghost towns, Hill forts, etc, and it seems appropriate to draw these together, so I disagree that the family of cats is "not very useful". But is your criticism of purpose or of name? Huwmanbeing's diagreement is over the name - yours extends to purpose.

Trellech is marginal here, IMO. The abandonment of a settlement and its resettlement nearby, eg Verulamium/ St Albans, leaves a lost settlement on the original site; the destruction of a settlement and its resettlement some time after, eg, Medeshamstede/Peterborough, also means that there was a "lost" settlement. An important settlement that implodes into a small one is debatable; there's continuity on site, but not in essence. Trellech sounds like this.

Response also on Ghmyrtle's own page. Folks at 137 (talk) 11:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound dismissive. My comment is just that I think there should be one category for settlements which are known to have existed but their locations are unknown; and a separate category for those where the locations are known but they have been abandoned at some point. Pengwern, for instance, may not have been abandoned - it may have later become Shrewsbury, but we don't know as its location is lost. Using the ambiguous term "lost" in both meanings of the word - "unknown" and "abandoned" - for a single category, seems to me to be confusing. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I came across this as the category 'Hill forts of Wales' was on my watchlist. I agree entirely with Ghmyrtle's comments. This category's name is very misleading and its use is unacceptable as a parent category for categories like 'Hill forts in Wales' (in this case they are neither "lost" or even neccesarily settlements as such). Furthermore, as the category 'Lost settlements in Ireland' (not '...in the Republic of Ireland') clearly implies that Northern Ireland is included there, any renamed category - whatever is chosen for "lost", retain or replace, - should be '...of Britain': this would then match the other historical categories for Britain (as opposed to the UK). Enaidmawr (talk) 19:42, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

See now Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_December_20#Category:Lost_settlements - a Cfd on the whole hierarchy. Johnbod (talk) 05:15, 23 December 2008 (UTC)