As the recession bites and towns and villages are left to fend for themselves so a rash of name changing has broken out as some attempt to move upmarket and attract more prime visitors, residents and shops.

Most recent is Staines in Surrey, home town (most famously) to comedy character Ali G and which added ‘on-Thames’ top its name last month. And in a few weeks’ time the Oxfordshire town of Abingdon is following suit when it asks permission from its district council to adopt ‘on-Thames’ too.

Let's reflect on the river: Abingdon in Oxfordshire is trying to change its name

Others are further behind. Conservative MP Dan Byles, who represents North Warwickshire, is waging a largely failed campaign to have his constituency’s name altered to include ‘and Bedworth’ to reflect geographic (rather than political) reality.

And residents of a south Wales village, Sully in the Vale of Glamorgan, want to alter the recently created alternative Welsh version of their locale – Sili – because it sounds “silly”, a spokesman said.

Changing moniker is not a new trend, of course. A quick look at the names of Britain’s 44 cities, 928 towns and 4,520 villages reveals how often they have changed theirs over the decades, centuries and even millennia.

Many alter ‘organically’ as the English language develops (Swindon was once SwineDun meaning Pig Hill) but in more recent times places have changed their name more abruptly for a variety of reasons.

The London borough of Greenwich, which is now very Royal.

The most common is when monarchy comes knocking. Last month the London borough of Greenwich gained ‘Royal’ status, the first local authority to win the Queen’s approval in more than 85 years. And in October last year the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett, famed for its silent tributes to soldiers killed in war as they pass through its high street, was also renamed ‘Royal’.

Name changes can be controversial, too. A councillor in the village of Kenardington, Kent, got into trouble in 2009 when she asked for a thoroughfare to be changed from Church Road to ‘Lane’ to prevent confusion with an identically named road in a nearby (and similarly named) village. Locals, however, thought her proposal largely an attempt to make Kenardington sound (and look) more ‘middle class’ and to ‘boost property prices’.

And then there’s the ‘simples’ PR opportunity. Insurance website comparethemarket.com recently claimed to have persuaded Market Harborough in Leicestershire to change its name following a Facebook campaign. The town was known Meerkat Harborough for a day.

During a recent radio show appearance PrimeLocation.com was corrected on a small but significant piece of property history by the London Evening Standard’s no-nonsense planning correspondent, Mira Bar Hillel.

The mistake had been to claim that Margaret Thatcher (pictured above, before she became Prime Minister) and her 1979 Conservative government had sparked the home ownership revolution that rumbles on today.

Mira, shaking her head vigorously from across the studio, pointed out that it was an earlier Tory administration, not Thatcher’s. Instead, in 1957  Harold Macmillan abolished rent controls and it was this, after rents subsequently soared, that persuaded millions of us to embrace ownership.

Even though Mira was right to assert this, for many people Margaret Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ council homes scheme (brought in soon after her 1979 victory) was a seminal moment in Britain’s property market, enabling some two million or more people to buy their local authority homes, often at a very substantial discount.

But as many of us queue to see the film Iron Lady starring Meryl Street (pictured above), how has the property market changed since her triumphant, ‘the lady’s not for turning’ speech?

Like today, the economy was in difficulties and Thatcher had to bring in harsh policies to correct the downturn. Nevertheless, in those days first time buyers required just £25,000 to get on the property ladder (compared to £155,000 or so today); a million pounds bought a huge 2,000 acre country estate; and mortgage rates were running at 17%, something we haven’t had to endure this time round.

According to agent Jackson-Stops & Staff, wealthy commuters could buy a good six bedroom family home in the stockbroker belt of Surrey with an acre of garden for £250,000 – today it would cost over £2 million.

And Dawn Carritt, who heads up JSS’s country house department, also remembers how “loans would not be considered for anything more than two and a half times a person’s salary” and mainly came from building societies and that only a few years before women would have needed to get their father’s or husband’s consent to get a mortgage in their own name.

Tax was also in its own bracket in the 1970s, as many rock stars famously grumbled about at the time – including Mick Jagger. Inheritance Tax (then known as Capital Transfer Tax) was 75% and income tax for high earners 83 per cent, though it was reduced by Thatcher in 1979 to 60 per cent. Basic rate tax was 33 per cent but fell to 30 per cent in the first Thatcher budget.

The TV spy thriller series The Avengers was one of Britain’s longest running small screen shows broadcast as one-hour episodes between 1961 and 1969 and also during its revival in the 1970s.  And it made global stars of its main characters including John Steed (Patrick Macnee), Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) and Purdey (Joanna Lumley).

But the series was also beloved by millions for its setting – the prettier vistas, streets and roads of swinging 1960s London. And if you should wish to relive many scenes from The Avengers, and its later incarnation The New Avengers then pop down to Ennismore Garden Mews in Knightsbridge, London and have a look at No.21 – a two bedroom mews property for sale used on multiple occasions as a location for the series.

Another mews house, No.3 Stable Mews (around the corner) was also used for filming, mainly as the home of John Steed. Also, many other roads around Ennismore Garden Mews, including Rutland Mews South and East and Cleveland Mews, made an appearance in the film.

And The Avengers wasn’t alone in using Ennismore Garden Mews – it also featured in several episodes of The Professionals and HJ Wells The Invisible Man.

Today No.21 is owned by entrepreneur, business advisor and Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year finalist Christianne Wuillamie who is asking £2.75m for the house – which comes with planning permission to be extended with a conservatory at the back within its courtyard garden.

As Charles Dickens fans around the world prepare for the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth on 7th February this year, a property on the Isle of Wight where he wrote large tracts of his most famous novel, David Copperfield, is up for sale.

Winterbourne Country House in Bonchurch, an upmarket suburb of the island’s major seaside resort, Ventnor, is currently on the market for £1.495 million and was rented by Dickens during the summer of 1849 and treasured by him for its views over the English Channel.

It is while staying here that he wrote six chapters of David Copperfield, although his stay was social as well as to write; he invited many of his literary friends over to stay including William Thackeray (author of Vanity Fair), satirist Thomas Carlyle, poet Alfred Tennyson and Mark Lemon, then editor of Punch magazine.

While staying at Winterbourne Dickens wrote to his wife Catherine – who was in London – to say: “I think it is the prettiest place I ever saw in my life, at home or abroad”. And in recent times many people have been able to enjoy its pleasures too – the property has been run as a guest house in recent years and holds five-star ratings from both Visit Briain and the AA.

The property is being sold as two lots, the first being the main house with seven bedrooms, large gardens and swimming pool (for £1.495m). A second lot, which is a four bedroom property called Hadfield Cottage, is for sale separately at £325,000. Agent Christopher Scott says this could either be let out or bought as guest or staff accommodation for the main house.

But Winterbourne has also been a TV star on several occasions including, recently, an appearance on Channel 4’s Three In A Bed show, during which it competed with two other Isle of Wight B&Bs.

This eye-catching house for sale in Lancashire was built out of stone from one of the local manor’s barns by one of Britain’s best-known actors but, unlike many of her TV and stage appearances, it didn’t have quite such a happy ending.

Beckside House in Wycoller near Colne is on the market for £560,000 and was built by Penelope Keith, star of two famous 1970s TV comedy series, The Good Life and To The Manor Born, the last episode of which was viewed by 24 million people.

These two programmes dominated the ratings during the 1970s and helped to make a star of Keith, who for over thirty years has lived outside Guildford in Surrey.

But in the mid-1980s she, along with her Lancashire-born husband Rodney, bought a plot of land on a 99 year lease within Wycoller Country Park and built this cottage as a second home.

The area has other famous connections, too. Wycoller Country Park contains landmarks referred to in books written by the Brontë sisters, both of whom used to visit Wycoller regularly and in particular the ruins of Wycoller Hall, which is said to be the model for Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Bronte’s book Jane Eyre.

But Penelope Keith’s association with the area is slightly less happy. Wycoller Country Park is controlled by a very tight set of conservation by-laws and the only cars allowed in are those belonging to residents. And planning is tightly controlled too – as Keith found out.

She and Rodney applied to build a six-bedroom guest house in the village but were thwarted by planners during several attempts. And despite saying they wanted to retire to Lancashire, the couple sold up in 2001 for £235,000.

Instead they now have a property on the Black Isle peninsula in the Scottish Highlands but recently tangled with planners there too when they proposed to build a two-storey cafe overlooking the harbour in one of the area’s towns, Avoch.

Happily , the outcome was more successful this time and in February this year planning permission was granted.

Beckside House is on the market with agent Fine and Country.

In spite of the publicity surrounding Young Herriot, the new ‘prequel’ to All Creatures Great and Small due to screen on BBC1 this Christmas, a house that played a central role in the original series remains unsold after four months on the market and a £30,000 price drop.

The property, Cringley House, is one of the dozen or more three storey houses in Askrigg, Wensleydale left over from its heyday as a market town during the mid 18th century.

LtoR: All Creatures Great And Small stars Timothy Christopher, Robert Hardy and Peter Davidson.

On the market at £320,000 it is best known as Skeldale House, the vet’s surgery of James Herriot played in the series by Christopher Timothy but also starring Robert Hardy as his father Siegried, Peter Davidson as the younger brother Tristan and Carol Drinkwater as the mother Helen.

All Creatures Great and Small, which at its peak attracted audiences of 13 million, was set in ‘Barrowby’ which in the books was modelled on Herriot’s home town of Thirsk. But Askrigg is where much of the filming took place and one of the towns’ pubs, The King’s Arms, doubles as the family’s favourite watering hole, The Drover’s Arms.

The show ran for three series during the late 1970s, was revived in the late 1980s based on scripts on Alf Wight (who used James Herriot as his nom de plume) and the last episode was screened as a Christmas Special in 1990.

Like the series, Cringley House (pictured, above) is due a comeback. The property is in reasonable structural condition but it’s blank canvas; it used to contain one-bedroom flats and office space but the property now stand empty. Similar properties for sale in the town are on the market for between £500,000 and £600,000.

The selling agent, GSC Grays, says the house has several potential future uses including upgrading the property into six, one-bedroom flats; creating three two-bedroom apartments; restoring it to a single dwelling or converting it into a B&B or hotel/restaurant.

The town of Askrigg in Wensleydale, Yorkshire Dales National Park.

A commercial use is its most likely future incarnation, locals says, given that Askrigg is one of the key tourist towns within the Yorkshire Dales National Park which is visited by some eight million people a year. Also, Askrigg is just five miles from Hawes, the home of Wallace and Gromit’s favourite cheese, Wensleydale.

But fans of the TV series expecting to see more of the Yorkshire Dales in Young Herriot will be disappointed. The three, one-hour episodes are set in Glasgow and follow the vet as he learns his trade as a young man.

Thousands of children across the UK strive to earn a bit of pocket money in their spare time to buy video games, sweets or maybe fund a mobile phone.

But nine-year-old Keiron Williamson from the village of Ludham in North Norfolk has taken this to a new level. He’s earned enough money to buy a large, detached house for his family to move into.

Until March this year Keiron, his parents Keith and Michelle plus sister Billie (pictured, below) lived in a small two-bedroom apartment in the village opposite a petrol station.

Photos: Albanpix / Rex Features

But Keiron’s extraordinary painting talents, which brought him fame two years ago after his watercolours of the local landscape first came to public notice, have now begun to earn him enough money for the family to buy a £150,000 house in the village, Old Post Office Cottage.

The latest exhibition of Keiron’s paintings attracted global interest, earning ‘mini Monet’ as he is called locally, a further £106,260 after his latest 12 paintings sold out in just ten minutes. To date the child artist has successfully sold 89 paintings in five exhibitions – with all of his shows being sell outs.

Photos Albanpix / Rex Features

At the latest show held last month the most expensive of the works on offer was a £15,595 painting of Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, which Kieron painted based on photos from the internet.

His work first came on the market in 2009 when 19 of his paintings were sold for £14,000 in a sealed-bid auction.

In August last year, 33 of his creations sold for £150,000 in less than 30 minutes – and it is this money that bought them their new home.

It’s a familiar story in today’s Prime property market – a Cheshire mansion bought for £1.85 million in 2007, bull-dozed, re-built and put on the market for £5 million. Two years and a price drop later Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff has finally sold his Prestbury pile – to another sports star, footballer Peter Crouch.

Apart from the set of cricket wickets carved above the front door and a mosaic of the Ashes urn in the swimming pool, this is the type of uber-luxurious house that was built for a footballer – even though it was actually built by a cricketer.

Flintoff bought the plot in October 2007 from ex-Fulham football manager Mark Hughes and after fights with locals and an initially refused planning application, he was able to knock down the existing property and build a six bedroom mansion akin to others on one of the UK’s most expensive streets, Withinlee Road, AKA Footballer’s Alley.

The house was designed for Flintoff family life and includes a large pool plus a smaller one for their three children. It also has a luxury gym and home cinema but the Flintoffs never lived in their made-to-measure home. Instead, they turned their attention to the dizzying heights of Dubai and their Cheshire mansion has waited patiently for two years for a buyer.

Despite being in Prestbury – the centre of footballer land (the Rooneys, Ferdinand and Tevez all live nearby) – Freddie wasn’t bowled over with offers for his £5 million pad. And only after changing estate agents, dropping the asking price by £500,000 – the price of a decent size house to most – plus the luck of footballer Peter Crouch moving Clubs, has the house finally sold.

Crouch is transferring from Tottenham Hotspur to Stoke City and moving up North with his new wife, Abbey Clancy and their six month old daughter and we have no doubt the house will suit the star couple’s needs perfectly, model Abbey will surely love the huge walk-in wardrobe (pictured above) and the WAG neighbours.

Dragon’s Den star Hilary Devey is selling up her Staffordshire home for £2.2 million, saying filming commitments for the hit BBC2 series prevent her spending much time at the property.

Devey, who is a publican’s daughter from Bolton, is the ninth dragon to join the programme and made her fortune in the world of freight distribution with a company she founded in 1996. Her personal style and tastes, though, are a world away from fork lift trucks and rumbling HGVs, particularly when choosing places to live.

The twice-divorced 52-year-old has been spending less and less time at at her home at Rangemore Hall, a large early-19^th century pile to the west of Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire in opulent surroundings that reportedly include a chandelier in the kitchen. She also owns an apartment in London as well as villas in Morocco and Spain.

Rangemore Hall, of which Devey occupies the largest wing, was built in the 1850s by the Bass brewing family to replace an earlier but smaller structure. An additional and Italianate wing was added during the late 1890s to accommodate King Edward VII, who paid a visit in 1902 and it’s this that Devey owns. She bought the property 2007 and has described it as being “over the top, like me”.

If this sounds up your tree lined drive and you fancy discussing the latest Dragon’s Den episode with your neighbour then Rangemore Hall’s Ewing Wing is up for sale at £895,000 and offers the sort of glamorous interior style (pictured, above) and views of the surrounding countryside as Devey’s home.