Orange (colour) in Portuguese, and "orange" in English. The House of Orange-Nassau was one of the most influential royal houses in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. It originated in 1163 the tiny Principality of Orange, a feudal state of north of Avignon in southern France. The Principality of Orange took its name not from the fruit, but from a Roman-Celtic settlement on the site which was founded in 36 or 35 BC and was named Arausio, after a Celtic water god; however, the name may have been slightly altered, and the town associated with the colour, because it was on
Oldest town in Britain Oldest town in Britain The title of oldest town in Britain is claimed by a number of settlements in Great Britain. Abingdon in the English county of Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire) claims to be the oldest town in Britain in "continuous settlement". Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age remains have been found in and around the town, and evidence of a late-Iron Age enclosure of 33 hectares known as an 'oppidum' was discovered underneath the town centre in 1991. It continued to be used as a town throughout the Roman occupation of Britain and subsequently became a Saxon settlement, named Sevekesham