Here are the covers of two books about the origins of the
place names of Northumberland. The first one, with the title that you might be
wary of searching for online these days, was published in 1970 by Oriel press,
a Newcastle based publisher who produced a number of very good books on local
history. The second is by Stan Beckensall, a Northumberland scholar and writer
best known for his work on the prehistoric rock carvings of the area (possible
subject of a future blog post). It has been revised and reprinted since, but I
like having the 1975 original, no. 63 in the series of Northern History
booklets produced by the Frank Graham press.
Here are a few examples of the contents.
GOODWIFE HOT Of
course you now want to know the origin of this remarkable name. Watson relates that it is one of a group of
Celtic camps or hill forts in an area of Redesdale, another being called Garret
Hot, and says the modern name is likely to be a corruption of an original
Celtic name, now lost. He also speculates though that it may be an anglicised
reference to a fertility goddess, of
whom he also reckons to have found traces in the folkloric figure of the Old
Wife. Beckensall does not include this
name at all. Any readers who know if this matter has been cleared up since 1970,
please get in touch.
BERWICK The home
territory of this blog. Every book I have ever looked at gives the derivation
of the name as bere-wich, a barley farm. An especially scholarly one I looked
at in the reference room of the National Library of Scotland offered the
additional fact that wick or wich often referred to a smaller farm outlying
from a large farm. That sounds likely in our case, and is more satisfactory than the
often seen shorthand version that tells us a wick was any kind of settlement. A local amateur historian once bent my ear at
length with his theory that in the case of Berwick the wick comes from the
Scandinavian for ‘bay’. It is true that the Icelandic vik means ‘bay’ (the
name Reykavik apparently means ‘smoky bay’, thus incidentally explaining why
the Scots say that a chimney ‘reeks’), but this cannot be the derivation of any
of the inland –wicks in this area, and in any case, the most striking
geographical fact about Berwick is that it stands on an estuary, not a bay. I
also possess a Directory of Northumberland from 1855, and that offers the
theory that the name was originally Aberwick, from the Celtic aber meaning
the mouth of a river. When I toured the
local Masonic Hall last month as part of the Heritage Open Doors weekend, I
noticed that they use the name Aberwicke on one of their mysterious
commemorative boards. (‘I’m not allowed to explain everything to you, but we
like old versions of names’.) This derivation seems to have entirely gone out
of favour, but it does have some plausibility.
CAMBOIS A village in
the south-east corner of the county, best known for the amusement afforded to
Northumbrians when visitors pronounce its name as if it were French. It is actually pronounced as if the b were
not there, which originally it wasn’t. Both of these books say it is derived
from the Old Celtic kambo, meaning crooked, cf. Irish camus and Welsh cemmaes,
and that the most likely feature in the vicinity to be described as crooked is
the bay on which it stands. The name is seen in the form Cammes in the year
1050, according to Beckensall. Watson says that the modern spelling is probably
due to the French speaking clerks who arrived after the Norman conquest, and
comments that the name is a fine illustration of the importance of taking local
pronunciation as the primary source for place names, since they have been
handed down entirely by oral transmission.
CRASTER A fishing
village in the northern part of the county, where we often went for the day
when I was little. Beckensall says the
name is derived from the Old English crawe-ceastre, a fort inhabited by crows.
It is found in the form Craucestre in the year 1242. There is a seabird
called the chough which is a member of the crow family. There was a long
established cafe in the village called The Choughs, but as far as I know they never exploited this fascinating piece of etymology for the benefit of
their business.
HEBRON In the days
when I regularly took the bus between Alnwick and Newcastle I used to pass a
signpost to this hamlet, and wearing my other hat as someone who has studied
the Middle East, it always intrigued me. It seems that the name has no
connection to the West Bank town called Hebron by the Israelis. Beckensall says
that it comes from hea-byrgen, a high barrow or burial mound, and is the same
name as Hepburn and Hebburn. This last
is an area of Tyneside, and during the period in the 1980s when Belinda
Carlisle had a record in the charts called ‘Heaven is a place on earth’, Geordies
liked to sing, ‘Hebburn is a place on earth’. Can’t really argue with that.
I hope you have found the above interesting. Perhaps in the
future I will publish a few more examples.
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