On a short cycling break, coming off the North York Moors, I began the almost arrow-straight two-mile descent from Glaisdale Moor, down Glaisdale Rigg and into the lovely village of Glaisdale in the wooded Esk Valley. The name was vaguely familiar, recalling the Seventies House of Lords judicial heyday of Lord Simon of Glaisdale, who had been MP for Middlesbrough West and Lord-Lieutenant of North Yorkshire.

The confluence of law lords and locations brought to mind a trip last year to the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset where we found a splendid pub called the Square and Compass: no bar but a serving hatch, its own fossil museum and a spooky garden, which gave the impression that scenes from The Wicker Man might be taking place over the next hill. It was in the village of Worth Matravers, the place used by the outgoing Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, in the title of his peerage. Unfortunately we did not see him wandering through the village.

A Lord of Appeal in Ordinary is technically a life peer appointed pursuant to the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876. As part of the patent of creation of the peerage, the title usually adds a territorial designation but, for some, a place name can also form part of the title itself. It depends where the comma is placed. Thus the Lord Chief is actually Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, of Belsize Park in the London Borough of Camden. More emphatically, and leaving no doubt of the importance of the territory, the former Treasury counsel, Simon D. Brown, is Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, of Eaton-under-Heywood in the County of Shropshire.

Lord Hoffmann, who does not use a place name as part of his title, is technically Lord Hoffmann, of Chedworth in the County of Gloucestershire, whereas Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the outgoing senior law lord, does not have a separate territorial designation.

The incorporation of a place name in the title does not appear to have been a common trend in the early years of last century. None of the great names of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, such as Denning, Reid, Diplock or Wilberforce, felt the need to include one (Lord Reid appearing to depart from “Drem” some time in the late Fifties).

The first incorporated location that really trips off the tongue probably began when Sir John Morris of the Court of Appeal became the infinitely grander and clearly Welsh Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest in 1960. Throughout the subsequent decade he seems to have been the only one with a designated location until the appointment of Lord Cross of Chelsea and the above-mentioned Lord Simon in the early Seventies. Then a couple of the Scottish law lords of the Seventies brought down names to conjure with: the alliterative Lord Keith of Kinkel and the nobly rolling Lord Fraser of Tullybelton. Subsequently, it seems to have become much more common: of the present twelve law lords, only three do not identify their provenance.

As part of the popular literary genre of travels with a theme, one can envisage a book detailing journeys to, and impressions of, places such as Cornhill, Craighead, Newdigate, Foscote, Earlsferry, Gestingthorpe, Richmond (North Yorkshire), Eaton-under-Heywood and Abbotsbury. With optional excursions to Clashfern, Lairg and Thoroton to pay respect to the last three proper Lord Chancellors. I’ve already started with Glaisdale and Worth Matravers but it might take some time.

Finally on the topic of judicial titles, I have during my career come across two very able barristers called “Mr Lord”. We can only hope that at least one of them combines high judicial office with a love of cricket so as to become “Lord Lord of Lord’s”. It is not as if a sense of humour has always been absent in this very dignified area: we can look to the example of Sir Cyril Salmon who on his appointment in 1972 took the title Lord Salmon, of Sandwich.

The author is a partner at Laytons

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