Roland Perry wrote:
In message . uk, at
09:30:00 on Tue, 26 Aug 2008, Colin Rosenstiel
remarked:
There's a Docwra's Close next to Shepreth Station. Pronounce that!

No harder than "Gwydir".

I can have a stab at "Gwydir" (perhaps to rhyme with "why-dear", or is
it "wider"),

Assuming this is the one in Cambridge, something like "G'why-der" is
about what I knew it as, rhyming with wider, but I didn't know many
natives to know how they might say it - the chap I know who lives in
said street is from Herefordshire. Whitefriargate in Hull is locally
called Whitefrargate, with a missing middle "i", but there is no way of
knowing that.

It's Cambridge, there must be a website. Aha:
http://www.colc.co.uk/cambridge/gwydir/name.htm

"Gwydir Castle is the ancestral home of the powerful Wynn family,
descended from the kings of Gwynedd and one of the most significant
families of North Wales during the Tudor and Stuart periods. ... The
Welsh "Gwydir" is pronounced differently from Cambridge, with the
syllables rhyming with "squid" and "beer". Our "Gwydir" in Cambridge
rhymes with "rider".



but "Docwra" seems superficially unpronounceable as there's
a middle vowel missing; "Doc-wer-ah" maybe, or is it "doe-cur-uh"



--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK