On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:26:30 +0100, Recliner
wrote:

Coincidentally, today's Guargian has a commentary by David McKie on this
very topic:
...
The practice of naming stations after commercial enterprises was
commonplace from the beginning. The institutions in question were pubs.
The railway companies did not ask for any subvention; they picked these
names because the pub was the only recognisable building around. Since
the coming of the railway led to new villages growing up round the
station, the pub name gave birth to the name of the village, which is
why a village near Hay-on-Wye is known as Three Cocks. Sometimes the
prissier railway companies dropped the pub name and chose something more
salubrious, which is how Jolly Sailor became Norwood Junction, and
Dartmouth Arms was refurbished as Forest Hill.

Craven Arms, on the line that runs south through Shropshire, sought for
some time to better itself by adding the name of a celebrated fortified
manor house a mile distant and calling itself Craven Arms and Stokesay -
a practice dropped in the 1970s.

Not a million miles from there, did Pontypool and New Inn come about in a
similar way?

Colin McKenzie

--
No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at the
population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as walking.
Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org.