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Wales Online
Wales Online
Entertainment
Wales News Service & John Cooper

Someone has translated the entire London Underground map into Welsh

The London Underground map has been given a new twist after being translated into Welsh.

Train-lover David Smith was travelling on the Tube with friends when the idea was sparked to give all the stations a Welsh name.

His Welsh-speaking friends jokingly started to translate the station names – but David thought they were on the right track and did the whole map.

He swapped Wimbledon for Brynwimbwl, Baker Street for Stryd Bacr, and Elephant and Castle for Eliffant and Castell.

David Smith (centre) with his friends Elen, Lisa and Howie in London (David Smith)

“We were on the Victoria line one evening on the way back from the pub, looking at the map in the train, and we started translating the various places into Welsh

“We liked the sound of it and talked about doing the whole map. I had a couple of days at home where the weather was miserable, so I started translating the Tube map,” David said.

The full map shows an impressive level of detail (David Smith, Elen Bradley-Roberts, Lisa Peters & Howie Russell/WALES NEWS SERVICE)
Elephant and Castle tube stop translated to Eliffant and Castell as shown at the bottom of this image (David Smith, Elen Bradley-Roberts, Lisa Peters & Howie Russell/WALES NEWS SERVICE)

David’s love for the Welsh started when he began working as a guard on the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways in Snowdonia.

Passengers started to speak to him in Welsh so David decided to learn the language.

David, who lives in Birmingham, went through the etymology of each station with the help of the Londonist website – changing some names to what they “sounded” like.

"It was quite an interesting process, learning stuff in English as well as practising Welsh," added David.

"For instance, Bethnal Green might be along the lines of ‘Happy Corner Green’, which ended up as ‘Maestrohapus’ in Welsh."

David added that he was stumped by Harrow – which means “heathen temple”.

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