Hlep = leap. Hence Hartlip, of old Hertelepe. There are two places thus
named.
Pirge = pear tree. Possibly Perrywood and Perry Street. And Perhamstede
according to authorities.
Plum-treu = plum tree. Hence Plumstead—and Plumpton?
Faerh = a young pig, whence our word “farrow.” Considering that the
rearing of swine was the chief occupation in the dens, I wonder that no
one has suggested this word for the first syllable of Farleigh and
Fairlight.
Brycg = bridge. The Saxon had the word, but not many bridges. Most of
our eleven place-names in Kent containing this word are of post-Saxon
date, while we have fifteen “fords.”
Sae = sea. So our Seasalter and Seabrook.
Aac = oak. We have Ackholt, Acol, Acryse, Oakhurst, Oakley, and Ockholt
(now Knockholt).
Elm, borrowed from the Latin Ulmus. The Witch-elm, called Wice in Saxon,
is indigenous, the other elm imported. We have Elmley, Elmstead, and
Elmstone.
Mistel = mistletoe (ta. fem.—tdig) may appear in Mistleham, near
Appledore.
Caelf = calf. The Saxon name for Challock was Caelf-loca-n, _i.e._,
enclosed place for calves. The second syllable suggests the Latin locus,
but is the source of our English Lock, _i.e._, shut up. So the locks on
the river; and pounds for straying cattle are “lokes” in East Anglia.
Pleg-huses = theatres (or recreation grounds). Our Plaistow and Plaxtol.
Syla = wallowing place. So our numerous Soles, which I later enumerate.
Dimhus and Dimhof = hiding or dark place. Our Dymchurch are instances.
Crocc and Hweras are both Saxon for pots. Few know what pure Saxon they
use when they talk of crockery-ware. Pottery was always a great industry
from Sittingbourne to Sheppey, and the Romans appreciated and extended
it. This may account for our Crokham Hill, Crockham, Crockhurst Street,
and Crockshard.
Cocca, gen. plural = chickens. Cock St., Cockham Wood, Cockshill,
Coxheath, Cockadam Shaw, while in Detling we have Cock-hill, Upper and
Lower Cox Street. Some may, of course, be modern and personal names; but
I cannot so trace them.
Boley Hill, near Rochester, was undoubtedly a place of civic importance
in very early days. It was a Danish meeting place corresponding to our
shire-mote at Pennington Heath, and we may best trace its name to a
Danish word which we still use—the bole of a tree. This is found in
various parts of the Danish district of Lincolnshire, and the reference
may be to the hill with a famous tree under which the court of the
community was held. Trees, as well as cromlechs or great stones, were
common landmarks in Saxon times—hence our various Stones in Kent.
Others, however, consider it a corruption of Beaulieu, a name given by
the Templars to the sites of their preceptories, and they instance a
Boley or Bully Mead in East London, which belonged to the Templars. And
others, because of its ancient legal associations, think it should be
Bailey Hill, and refer us to the Old Bailey in London.
Farleigh.—On a clear day from Detling Hill we can see, not only
Farleigh, near Maidstone, but Fairlight Church, near Hastings. In Saxon
days and documents these place-names were the same, and so in Domesday
(1086), each is Ferlega, the passage or fareing through the pastures or
leys, just as our modern Throwley is Trulega, with the scribes’
variations in 12th century deeds of Thruleghe, Trulleda, Trulea,
Thrulege, and Trudlege. Fairlight, therefore, is simply a modern
corruption after a fashion which once corrupted the name of Leigh, near
Tonbridge, which I find written Legh in 1435, Ligth in 1513, Lyghe in
1525, and Lyght in 1531. It has been suggested that the first syllable
may indicate a personal name, Fær; but this seems less tenable.
Borstall, from the Anglo-Saxon Beorg, a hill, and stal, a dwelling (as
in Tunstall), means a path up a steep hill. So there is Borstall Hill
near Rochester, Bostall Hill near Woolwich, and Borstall Hill by
Whitstable. And I have noted a passage in White’s _Selborne_—he made a
path up the wooded steep hill near his vicarage called the Hanger, and
he writes: “Now the leaf is down, the Bostall discovers itself in a
faint, delicate line running up the Hanger.”
Eastry.—Lambarde thought this village was so named to distinguish it
from West-Rye, now called simply Rye, but the places are too far apart,
especially when the great forest of Anderida came between them. McClure,
our most recent authority on British place-names, would refer it to the
Rugii, a Continental clan from the Island of Rugen in the Baltic, whom
he finds represented in Sûthryge (Surrey). So he would make the word
East-ryge, and in a charter of 780 it is Eastrygena, and in another
Eastryge. But amongst the various early spellings is Eastereye, _i.e._,
Eástoregg (No, not Easter Egg!), the island of Eástor. In a will of 929,
“Æthelnoth, the reeve to Eastorege,” is mentioned. Now the next parish
is Woodnesborough, the town of Woden, the Saxon god. So here may well
be, named at the same time and by the same people, the name of Eástor,
the goddess of spring; while, as to its suffix, the centre of the
village stands higher than the rest, and is almost entirely surrounded
by a valley, though not now by water. Fewer greater authorities than
Professor Skeat are to be found, and he inclines to this interpretation.
Folkestone.—Here we find several interpretations, the more modern being
the most absurd. Thus Phillipott suggests the town full of folk! and
Murray’s Handbook to Kent Fulke’s Town (whoever this Fulke may have
been)! Both, however, forgot that the final syllable is always stane or
stone, and not ton. Another imaginative worthy says that its stone
quarries were much used in the 13th and 14th centuries, and belonged to
the community, and so it was the Folks’ Stone! Folcland we know;
Folcmote we know; but what is this? The _Anglo Saxon Chronicle_ says
that Harold seized ships at Folcesstane, and in Domesday it appears as
Falchestan. Harris simply Latinizes the name and calls it Lapis populi,
the stone of the people, and as in Ninnius (8th cent.) there is a
reference in his description of England to the “stone of inscription on
the Gallic sea,” which some would identify with Folkestone; he may be
more right than he knew.
Plaxtol, near Sevenoaks.—In many Kentish parishes (and elsewhere) the
name Pleystole or Playstool clings to a piece of land on which miracle
and other plays were acted when amusements had to be mainly home-grown.
So at Lynsted, Herbert Finch, in the sixth year of Queen Elizabeth,
bequeathed the “Playstall et Playstollcroft” fields. A variant of the
name we may find in Plaistow, by Bromley. So in Selborne (Gilbert
White’s renowned village) the Plestor is the old playground. Would that
in all villages, especially since the looting of old commons, there
might be a field thus consecrated to healthy recreation.
Amongst the sources of enlightenment as to the meaning of our
place-names I have turned to the volume of the English Dialect Society,
which is on the _Kentish Dialect and Provincialisms_, and was prepared
by the Revs. W. D. Parish and W. F. Shaw. It does not contain, as I have
found, nearly all our local words, and not a few of the words it does
give are by any means peculiar to Kent. Still, it is useful and
interesting, and it may well be that some of our Kent place-names are
almost peculiar to Kent, especially as the neighbouring counties of
Sussex and Essex were populated by Saxons, but Kent was populated by the
Jutes, and no doubt their common tongue had its tribal variations. I
take from this dictionary all the words which are illustrative of
place-names.
Forstall = “a farm-yard before a house; a paddock near a farm house; or
the farm buildings.... As a local name, Forestalls seem to have abounded
in Kent.” Two instances are given; but I have noted Broken Forestall,
Buckley; Clare’s Forestall, Throwley; Mersham Forstall; Forstall Farm,
Egerton; The Forstall, Hunton; Preston Forstall, Wingham; Painter’s
Forestall, Ospringe; Hunter’s Forstall, Herne; Fostal, Herne Hill;
Forstall, Lenham; Forstall, Aylesford; Shepherd’s Forstall,
Sheldwich—and no doubt there are more.
Tye.—“An extensive common pasture, such as Waldershare Tie and Old
Wives’ Lees Tie, and in a document of 1510, a croft called Wolves’ Tie.”
I would add the places called Olantigh, one near Wye and another near
Fordwich. Teig-r is really a Norse word meaning a piece of grassland,
and when borrowed or used by the Saxons it became Tigar, Tig and Tey in
such place-names as Mark’s Tey.
Yokelet.—“An old name in Kent for a little farm or manor.” Cake’s Yoke
is the name of a farm in Crundale. The yoke was a measure of land,
probably such as one yoke of oxen could plough. Thus it corresponds to
the Latin jugum, which means a yoke, and also a land measure. We have
also West Yoke in Ash-next-Ridley; Yoklet, a borough in Waltham; land so
named in Saltwood; and Ickham was of old Yeckham or Ioccham, from the
A.S. yeok, a yoke of arable land. Iocclet is also given in the
dictionary as a Kenticism for a small farm.
Bodge.—“A measure of corn, about a bushel.” May this suggest a
derivation for Bodgebury, some land with a cottage thereon, part of the
old glebe of Detling?
Brent.—“The Middle-English word Brent most commonly meant burnt; but
there was another Brent, an adjective which signified steep.” Thus
Brentwood in Essex is the same as Burnt Wood in Detling, but the Brents
or North Preston near Faversham, and the Brent Gate therein refer to the
steep contour of the land. A Celtic root, found in Welsh as bryn, a
ridge, accounts for many such names as Brendon Hill, Birwood Forest,
Brandon, a ridge in Essex, Breandown near Weston-super-Mare, and many
Swiss and German names for steep places.
Court, or Court Lodge.—“The manor house, where the court leet of the
manor is held.” So in Detling we have East Court and West Court because,
in default of a son, the old manor was divided between two co-heiresses
in the 16th century. So we have as place-names North Court in Eastling,
a Court at Street in Lympne, besides very many names of old houses, such
as Eastry Court, Selling Court, etc.
Down.—“A piece of high open ground, not peculiar to Kent, but perhaps
more used here than elsewhere. Thus we have Updown in Eastry, Hartsdown
and Northdown in Thanet, Leysdown in Sheppey, and Barham Downs.” I may
add Puttock’s Down (the Kite’s Down), three villages called Kingsdown,
Derry Downs, Downe, Hackemdown, Harble Down, Housedown, Kilndown, two
Underdowns, besides probably some of the names ending in don. The Celtic
dun, a hill-fortress, found all over Europe, is directly found in our
Croydon, as in London, Dunstable, etc., and the Saxon extended its use,
especially in the plural, to high ground, whether crowned with a fort or
camp or not. Trevisa wrote in 1398 “A downe is a lytel swellynge or
aresynge (arising) of erthe passynge the playne ground ... and not
retchyng to hyghnesse of an hylle.”
Fright or Frith.—“A thin, scrubby wood.” So the Fright Woods near
Bedgebury. And I learned to skate as a boy at the Fright Farm on Dover
Castle Hill. This may account for Frith by Newnham, and possibly also
for Frittenden.
Polder.—“A marsh: a piece of boggy soil.” A place in Eastry now called
Felder land was of old Polder land, and nearer Sandwich is a place still
called Polders. Poll (Celtic), Pool (Early English), Proll (Welsh), is a
common prefix to the name of a brook. Polhill, however, in Harrietsham,
is more likely to come from the great Kent family of the Polhills. So we
have Polhill Farm in Detling, and a Polhill was Vicar in 1779.
Rough.—“A small wood; any rough, woody place.” So Bushy Rough in the
Alkham Valley, where rises one of the sources of the river Dour. Hence
also Rough Hills in Hernhill; Rough Common near Canterbury; and perhaps
Roughway in Plaxtol, the wood being used in the Kentish rather than the
usual sense.
Saltings, or Salterns, or Salts.—“Salt marshes on the sea-side of the
sea-walls.” A North Kent word, naming Saltbox, and Salterns, both in
Sheppey, and probably Seasalter near Whitstable. We must find, however,
if we can, another derivation for Saltwood Castle.
Selynge.—Toll, custom, tribute. The Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury,
used to take in the Stoure a certain custom, which was called Selynge,
of every little boat which came to an anchor before the mouth of the
said Flete. The compilers of the Dictionary say: “The parish of
Sellindge, near Hythe, probably takes its name from some such ancient
payment.” Is it possible that the old name of Sentlynge, given to S.
Mary’s Cray in Domesday Book, may point to another place of tolling
craft on the Cray?
The Northmen in Kent.
A _Furore Normanorum_ was a petition in an old litany in England before
it had gained that name. And with reason, for the success of Angles,
Jutes and Saxons in the conquest of England drew the attention of
Scandinavian and other Vikings, who found that booty could be gained by
rapid raids. It was at the end of the eighth century that the Danes (as
they came to be called, although the wider “Northmen” would be a better
term), reached the land of the Angles, coming from Norway to Dorset, and
generally harrying the eastern and southern coasts for a couple of
hundred years. They also remained and settled, mainly to the north of
the Humber, until at last the greater part of England came under their
power, and in 1016 Cnut became the Danish King of England.
Our forefathers in Kent should have our sympathy for the continuous
state of alarm in which they were kept. In 832 Scandinavian pirates
ravaged Sheppey. In 838 they won a battle in Merscware (_i.e._, the land
of the Marsh-folk, _i.e._, Romney Marsh), and slew many in Canterbury.
In 851 nine of their piratical ships were taken in battle at Londovic
(Sandwich) by Æthelstan, the under-king of Kent; but they remained to
winter in Thanet for the first time, and in the same year 350 of their
ships entered the Thames and took both Cantwaraburg and Lundenburg
(London). In 853 the men of Kent, under the Alderman Ealchere, with the
men of Surrey, fought in Tenet (Thanet), but were worsted. Next year
they wintered in Sceap-ige (Sheppey). In 865 the men of Kent tried to
buy off the heathen invaders, who, however, ravaged all East Kent.
Then arose the great man, Alfred, who in 871 had eight battles with the
Danes south of the Thames. In 885 they besieged Hrofceastre (Rochester),
but King Alfred relieved it, and the Danes took to their ships, having
lost all their horses. In 893 two hundred and fifty Danish ships came to
Limenemouth (Lympne), took their fleet four miles up the river, and made
a strong fort at Apuldore, while Hasting with 80 ships entered the
Thames estuary, made a fort at Milton, and later one at Sceobyrig
(Shoebury). In 969 Eadger orders Tenet land to be pillaged, and in 980
Thanet is overrun by the Danes. In 986 the bishopric of Hrofceastre was
devastated. In 993 a fleet of nearly four hundred ships came to “Stone,”
which may be the one in the Isle of Oxney, or another near Faversham on
the Watling Street, or another on the Swale, and went on to Sandwic,
which was their chief southern haven, and embodies in its name the
Scandinavian wic or bay (Sandwic is a common place-name in Iceland and
Norway).
In 994 Anlaf, King of Norway, and Sweyn, King of Denmark, with a fleet
of nearly 500, failed to take London, but ravaged Kent and other
counties. In 998 they sailed up the Medway estuary to Rochester, and
there beat the Kentish army. In 1005 a fleet came to Sandwic and
despoiled the country.
In 1007 England despaired, and paid a tribute of £36,000, while
Thurkell’s army came to Sandwich and thence to Canterbury, where the
people of East Kent bought peace at the cost of £3,000, while the Danes
spent the winter in repairing their ships. In 1012 they took Canterbury
and martyred the Archbishop Ælfheah, better known to us as S. Alphege.
In 1013 Sweyn came again to Sandwich; but in 1014 Eadmund (Edmund
Etheling) attacked the Danes in Kent, drove them into Sheppey, and met
their leader in battle at Æglesforda (Avlesford). But in 1016 Cnut
(Canute) became King of all England, and to him in 1018 £72,000 was paid
in tribute.
In 1203 the body of S. Alphege was allowed by Cnut to be taken to
Canterbury, and England remained a Danish province. In 1040 Harda-Cnut
was brought from Bruges to succeed Harold as King, and landed at
Sandwich. In 1046 Thanet was ravaged again by the Northmen; but in 1049
King Edward gathered a great fleet at Sandwich against Sweyn, and later
this fleet lay at Dærentamutha (_i.e._, Darentmouth, _i.e._ Dartford).
In 1051 King Edward’s brother-in-law, Eustace, lost some followers in a
fracas at Dofra (Dover).
But a great change was imminent, and England was to change one
domination for another, and in 1052 Wilhelm (afterwards the Conqueror)
visited King Edward the Confessor (or Saint) with a great host of
Normans, and he exiled Earl Godwin, who came from Bruges to Nœsse
(Dungeness) was driven back. Returning with his son Harold to Dungeness,
they took all the ships they could find at Rumenea (Romney), Heda
(Hythe), and Folcesstane. Thence to Dofra and Sandwich, ending up with
ravaging Sheppey and Middeltun (Milton, near Sittingbourne). Then, in
1066, Harold dies in battle at Hastings, and William begins our Norman
dynasty, Northmen being succeeded by Normans.
Traces of the visits to Kent are found in various place-names, though
more common in other parts of Britain, and indeed in other countries,
since as marauders, colonists, or conquerors they were for three
centuries the terror of Europe, from Iceland to Italy. The many places
with the suffixes byr or by, thorpe, throp, or trop, toft, thwaite,
ville in Normandy, or well and will in England, garth, beck, haugh,
with, tarn, dale, force, fell, are all almost exclusively northern to
Kent and mainly Norwegian. As to “by” for town, there are 600 north of
the Thames and east of Watling Street, and hardly any in the south. The
one apparent exception in Kent—Horton Kirkby—is no exception, for it was
simply Horton until the time of Edward the First, when Roger de Kirkby,
_from Lancashire_, married a Kentish heiress and the manor and place
were re-named after him.
We have, however, certain records of their piratical visits, as at
Deptford and Fordwich, where the termination is not the Anglo-Saxon
ford, meaning a passage across a river, but the Norse fiord, a roadstead
for ships. Deptford is the deep fiord, where ships could anchor close to
the bank, and Fordwich, the smallest “limb” of the Cinque Ports, was
once the port of Canterbury on the Stour, and gives us wic, the Norse
for station for ships, a small creek or bay. So, in Kent, we have also
from the same source Wick in Romney Marsh, Greenwich, Woolwich, and
Sandwich. Inland, however, Wich or Wick, is an Anglo-Saxon borrowing
from the Latin vicus, and means houses or a village.
Another Norse word in Kent is Ness or Naze, a nose or promontory, such
as Dungeness, Shoeburyness, Pepperness, Foulness, Shellness, Sheerness,
Sharpness Cliff at Dover, whence criminals were hurled, Whiteness,
Foreness, Bartlett Ness and Oakham Ness. The Nore, in Kent, is the
Norse, or perhaps Jutish, Nôr, a bay with a narrow entrance, and the
word is unique in Britain, unless we may find it also in Normarsh, near
Rainham. Again attributable to our invaders, and again purely coastal,
are the places ending in _fliot_, a small river or creek, such as
Northfleet, Southfleet, Ebbsfleet, with Purfleet on the opposite bank of
the Thames. Thanet and Sheppey were for us their chief points of attack
and their naval stations, while the Danelagh or Kingdom whence the Norse
element predominated had the Wash as the chief entrance whence they
radiated out.
The suffix “gate” may be either from the Saxon geat or the Scandinavian
gata, but when we find Ramsgate, Dargate, Margate, Westgate, Kingsgate,
Snargate, and Sandgate, all on the coast, while in Romney Marsh “gut”
takes the place of “gate,” as in Jervis Kut, Clobesden Gut, and Denge
Marsh Gut, we may incline to a Scandinavian origin.
It is in the north, and the north only according to the best
authorities, that the suffix ing represents the Norse _eng_ for
grass-land.
The Islands of Kent.
Most islands are attached portions of the nearest mainland, severed in
prehistoric times by subsidence of the intervening soil and the action
of strong currents. Thus even England is a portion of the Continent, as
its fauna and flora proclaim, while Ireland was severed earlier still.
Thus also the Isle of Wight is Hampshire. So our Kentish islands, now
only two and neither now to be effectually circumnavigated, are
practically absorbed in the mainland. “Sheppey, Thanet—what else?” most
would say. Yet the early geographer Nennius, writing in the eighth
century, has the following quaint passage:—“The first marvel is the
Lommon Marsh” (_i.e._, Limen, now Romney), “for in it are 340 islands
with men and women living on them. It is girt by 340 rocks, and in every
rock is an eagle’s nest, and 340 rivers run into it, and there goes out
of it into the sea but one river, which is called the Lemn.” Truly a
picturesque account of the numerous spots, where dry land first appeared
in the shallow bay, and the countless sluices which intersected them.
“Romney” is probably formed by the addition of the Saxon Ige, By, or
Ea—island, to the earlier Celtic Ruim—marsh, and so gives an idea of
what the district was before the Romans reclaimed much by building their
great Rhee Wall. Certain names in Romney Marsh preserved the same
history. Oxeney (still we have the Island and the Hundred of Oxney,
containing Wittersham and Stone parishes) is even now insulated by two
branches of the Rother, and here, in the ancient and now diverted
channel, was found in 1824 an oaken ship buried deep in sand and mud.
Its name is said to mean the isle of the fat beeves. On pagan altars
discovered there oxen were carved, and still it is a great
cattle-raising district. We should look now in vain for the three
ferries by which it was once entered. In its centre is Ebony, no doubt
originally a sort of island, once called “Ebeney in Oxney,” and in an
early document it appears as Hibbene. It has been suggested that the
first part of the word is the old Celtic Avon, _i.e._, water or river,
and I find that a Saxon charter of 793 A.D. calls the Gloucester Avon by
the name of Aben. The third syllable is, of course, the Saxon word for
island. Scotney Court, Lydd, and Scotney Castle, Lamberhurst, no doubt
preserve the name of the Barons de Scotini, who came from Scotigny in
North France, and possessed, in the 12th century, much land, which they
held until the reign of Edward the Third, while Scot’s Hall, near
Smeeth, was the seat of Knights of that name down to the time of the
Armada. But for this history one might have classed Scotney with Oxney
and Ebony.
Coming now to Sheppey, still an island, washed on the north by the
estuary of the Thames, on the west by that of the Medway, and insulated
by the Swale (Saxon Suala), crossed by a railway bridge and two ferries,
the Celtic name is said to have been Malata, from Mohlt, a sheep, which
the Saxon conquerors translated into Sceap-ige, Sheep Isle. It includes
Elmley and Harty, once its little islands, and now peninsulas. An old
name for Harty was Hertai, in which we may perhaps find the Saxon
Heorat—stag, hart—as in Hartlip and Hartbourne, and ea—island. And
Elmley, which island would simply denote the ley or glade in the forest
in which elms were frequent, might here be Elm-isle. And another islet
was Graven-ea, the grain island, on the opposite side of the Swale, now
in the Faversham marshes.