Places and names in UK

The meaning of a placename is almost always a matter of guesswork. The main fact about place names in England is that they are in origin overwhelmingly English or Norse. This reflects the occupation of England by the Anglo-Saxons and the later settlement of much of eastern England by the Vikings.

Traces the older Celtic placeneames crop up here and there, sometimes in odd ways. Bre was the Celtic word for 'hill' and dun meant 'hill' in Old English. So Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire is named 'Hill hill on the hill'. In Scotland, Wales and Cornwall many more Celtic names have survived.

Some place names, such as 'Allen', which occurs in Allendale and Alnmouth, belong to a language so old that we do not know what it was called, or who spoke it, a tong that is simply referres to as 'Pre-Celtic'.

Most names seem to be relatedto features of the landscape. The existence of a spring, or well, inspired names like Burwell in Lincolnshire and the two Amwells in Hertfordshire, while settlement by the lake, or mere, accounts for the name of Grasmere in Cumbria. Brentwood in Essex, means 'the burnt wood'. Another reference to clearing land by burning survives in the name of Brindley in Cheshire, 'the burnt clearing'.

Names ending in -ley (or -le, -leigh, -ly) generally come from an Old English term for a clearing in a wood. Names which end in -ton, -ham, -worthand often -wich are frequently descended from Old English words for a house, a village, a farm, a hamlet. In Norse areas the equivalents are placenames ending in -by or -thorp.

Some names ending in -ing or -ings seem to refer to the followers of an individual leader who all settled down together. Peatling in Leicestershire is translated as 'Peotla's people'. In Yorkshire, Asmunderby is explained as the village of the man named Asmundr and Helperby as the village of a woman called Hialp.

Village names were also a subject to changes. Wendens Ambo, in Essex, lies in a shady vale by a winding stream, which gives rise to be first half of its name, from the Old English verb Windan, 'to wind'. Ambo is a 17th century addition, a Latin word meaning 'both', referring to what had previously been two separate parishes, Great and Little Wenden.

New placenames have been coined right up to the present day and some names are distinctly odd. There is a Welsh village in Clwyd called Sodom, and another called Babel. Baldock in Hertfordshire was eccentrically named after Baghdad (Baldac in Old French) by the Knights Templar, who owned it in the Middle Ages. Westward Ho! in North Devon was named after a Victorian adventure novel by Charles Kingsley.

Some wonderfully poetic and magical nameswere created in medieval times by adding the name of the landowner to that of the village, thereby distinguishing between, say, Swaffham Prior and Swaffham Bulbeck, two villages a mile apart in Cambridgeshire. Medieval clerks introduced Latin as well, giving birth to Toller Porcorum ('of the pigs') and Ryme Intrinseca ('within').

Some names are a remarkable mixture. In Gwent the name of Llanvihangel juxta Rogiet means 'the church of StMichael' (in Welsh) 'next to' (in Latin) 'a road-gate' (in English). Placenames are a very rich tapestry.