User:Abybrg/Sodding Clodbury
Sodding Clodbury is a traditional English village in the County of Shopshire. It is believed that Oscar Wilde stayed here for a weekend in 1895, but he retained no memory of this sojourn.
Geography[edit | edit source]
Sodding Clodbury is located in the picturesque Cotdeath Hills, on the River Clod. Its population according to the 2006 census was 12 and a dog. However, it is thought that this cannot be correct, as there are over 100 houses in the village, each containing various numbers of people not believed to be squatters.
History[edit | edit source]
What is now a village was once the centre of the Saxon kingdom of Twigge, founded by King Eadwrardwde in 647 AD. It was then known as Sodd-inga Clodda-burh. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book, compiled by Norman estate agents in 1066. There was one free man in the village, who owned 'two ducks, a three-legged pig and a rather camp bull', and 477 peasants. One third of the population of Clodbury perished in the Black Death, which struck in 1403. This was over fifty years after it had left the rest of the country, thus causing considerable confusion.
Clodbury sided with Richard III in the Wars of the Roses, and was subsequently burnt down by the victorious Tudors. It remained staunchly Catholic in the reign of Henry VIII, who had the village burnt down for treason. In the English Civil War, Sodding Clodbury sided with the King. It was burnt down by Cromwell's soldiers in 1645.
Evidence for Oscar Wilde's stay has come into severe doubt, based as it is on the dubious evidence of three local choirboys who claimed to have been led astray by Wilde. However, their description of their mystery assailant does not match other sources.
In the Second World War, a German bomber returning from a raid on Bristol, unloaded its remaining bombs on Clodbury, burning down the village. In 1991, on the fifty-years' anniversary of the disaster, a commemorative fire got out of hand but WAS SOON EXTINGUISHED by local firefighters, who had cleverly guessed what was likely to happen.
Present-day Clodbury[edit | edit source]
The village is known to the locals simply as 'here', except when not in the village, when they call it 'back home'. Research has found that this is the case with many other settlements in Shopshire. People from the surrounding villages refer to it as 'effing Clodbury'. In 1998 a Tesco opened on the outskirts of the village. It was burnt down inside two weeks, whether by design or as another of Clodbury's numerous fire-related accidents no one knows.
Sport[edit | edit source]
Clodbury has two football teams, Clodbury Athletic and Dynamo Sodding, both of whom play in the North-East Shopshire Sunday League Third Division.