J. W. Horsley

“ One thing that strikes one at once is the proof any list of Kentish villages gives of the forestal character of Kent. As one of my aims is to save trouble on the part of some future writer who shall produce the long overdue History of Kentish Place-Names, I will here transcribe all which indicate a woodland origin. ”

“ There are two Anglo-Saxon words which have to be distinguished—Beorh, like the German Berg, meaning a hill; and Buruh or Byrig, which comes later into the suffix Bury, which again later comes to be used for a division of 69 Hundred or simply for a town. In the south of England we have most of the distinctively Saxon or Jutish Bury, while in the north we have the Anglian and Norse forms of Burgh, Brough, Borough, more common. And one must add, as a variant of the same word, Barrow, which in modern use we confine to a tumulus for the sepulture of a great warrior or leader. ”

“ The British and Saxon camps were no doubt numerous when we consider the centuries of marauders and invaders which kept our earliest forefathers in a constant fear. They were usually round or oblong, whereas the fewer and later camps or forts of the Romans were rectangular. Surrounded by a deep ditch, the earth of which was thrown up to make a wall, into them in troublous times were collected families and flocks, so that the transition of meaning from the Byrig or fort to the Borough or town was easy. ”

“ Tenterden is named, says an old Kentish writer, as “some vulgar fancies conjecture, from the tenderness of its soil”; Feversham, says another old Kentish writer, Phillipott, useful as an historian, useless to etymologists, “is an unhealthy town, and carries the tokens of it in its name.” Id. est., the home of fevers! Harbledown, says Black, is so-called “in allusion to its grassy downs and hills,” as if grassiness were not a characteristic of any and every down and hill in Kent. ”

“ There are not so many as one would expect considering the importance and power and the possessions of the Church in Kent. Taking some as they occur to me, there are All Hallows, in Sheppey, so named from the dedication of its church to All Saints’. The Latin Sanctus and the Teutonic Helige are the same in meaning. So we have, too, in Lower Halstow the Saxon helige stow—the holy place. In a list of Jack Cade’s Kentish followers, in 1450, the parish of Omi Scor is mentioned, which puzzled me for a moment until I saw it was a contraction for Omnium Sanctorum, All Saints’. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Herein, our real home or cradle, dwelt three tribes of the Low German stock, Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, and as to Kent it was the Jutes from Jutland who, under Hengist and Horsa, in A.D. 449, landed at Ebbsfleet in Thanet, as did others in the Isle of Wight, the Islands in both cases forming a great naval and military station, from which the hinterlands of Kent and Hants could be overrun. The later, and larger, seizures of the Saxons were all the southern counties, Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, and Wessex, while the sphere of the Angles spread upwards from what we still call East Anglia. ”

“ It will be found that spelling was often so vague that even a lawyer in writing an old record or will may spell a name differently in the same document, and in most cases in mediæval times the sound of the word ruled its spelling. ”

“ But always in an enquiring mind there was the insistent WHY? which is a characteristic and a glory of man as a reasoning animal, and hence often a meaning was given to a word that is simply a sort of pun, an endeavour to explain a word by what it looks like in current speech or dialect when there was not the knowledge of earlier times and older tongues which elevates mere guessing into the science of etymology. ”

“ So we have our Chelsfield, Oakfield, Ifield, Broomfield, Whitfield, Swingfield, Fairfield, Hothfield, Stalisfield, Clexfield, Longfield, Fieldgreen, and Netherfield, in the more forestal part of Kent, while in the list of parishes in the Rochester diocese, where marsh and down prevailed, I find only one parish—Matfield—which suggests old felling of trees. Sometimes, however, there would be attractive glades or leys on the outskirts of the forest, already pastured or cultivated to a certain extent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The word is said to be not Celtic (as are most river names here and on the 16 Continent) ; but Teutonic. Want or Went, meant a Way, and Som had the same qualifying force as in the word “winsome,” that is, equivalent to the “able” in “lovable.” There is a Wensum, a tributary of the Yare, near Norwich. While in early days the north branch of the Stour by Thanet was not fordable, this water was “go-able”—to coin a word. The “way” is not necessarily a water way. At Ightham, Seven Vents is the name of a place where seven roads meet. ”

“ Quarrels with these mercenaries arose as to pay, and the Britons of Kent resolved to fight. Hrofesceastre was too strong, and so southward turned Hengist along the Celtic country by Kits Coty House, and then swooped down on Aylesford and won a battle which meant the winning of England. Horsa fell in the moment of victory, and the flint heap of Horsted preserves his name, and has been held to mark his grave. Kentish landowners fled to France; the British labourers to the vast forest; churches gave no sanctuary, for the heathen Jutes raged most against the clergy. ”

“ Ravensbourne.—When Teutonic colonists or invaders, dispossessing the Celts, inquired the name of a stream, they took the Celtic word to be a proper instead of a common name, and so added their own name for water or river. Later, when the English tongue was evolved, 15 “water” was sometimes added to the Celtic, or Celtic-plus-Saxon, name. Thus, in Wansbeck-water, Wan is Alfon and Evon; S is a vestige of the Gadhelic visge; Beck is the Norse addition; and Water the later English when it was forgotten what Wansbeck meant. Thus our present name means River-water-river-water! ”

“ Eastchurch, in Sheppey, was, and is, the easternmost church in the island.
Place-Names from Persons.
We have seen how common in Kent are place-names derived from patronymics of the name of a family or clan, such as Kennington, the settlement of the Cennings, but there are others, mainly more modern, which include the name of an individual, who usually would be the lord of the manor. Thus some have imagined that Swingfield, near Dover, is Sweyn’s Field, as if the Saxons would have named a place after their piratical enemy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In early 19th century maps Cold Blow Farm was the representative of the old manor (Kent has a Cold Blow in Bexley) . A curious 15th century corruption was Coldabbeye, though there was never an abbey there. The farm succumbed to suburban expansion in the 19th century; but Harbour Road, Cold Harbour Lane, and Cold Harbour Place, tell us of its site. ”

“ And this is not always easy, since mediæval spelling was vague, and in some cases an original “stone” has become “ton” in later years, or vice versa. Generally, a reference to the earliest forms (where such can be found in Saxon or Norman, or even Early English documents) will settle the point. Thus Folkestone is by some identified with the site of the “stone of inscription on the Gallic sea,” mentioned by Nennius, the Saxon geographer. It is Folcesstane in the Saxon Chronicle, and Falchestan in Domesday, and therefore no explanation involving ton need be entertained. ”

“ Ruim is undoubtedly the British name of Thanet—Ruoihm, or Ruoichim—preceding Tenit, Tenitland, Thanet—so perhaps the situation of Ramsgate in Thanet is all we have to consider. McClure ignores “ruimne” as a derivation; but does not explain the Rumin as a name of the district. The oldest English form is in a charter of 697 A.D. Rumining—seta, i.e., the dwellings of the people of Rumin, and he inclines (though admitting it may be far-fetched) to derive from “Roman,” since the whole region is full of Roman associations. ”

“ The A.S. gen-lad means a discharging of a river into the sea, or a smaller river into one larger.” Ladan or hladan means to load or lade. Lambarde wrote in 1570 “Yenlade or yenlet betokeneth an Indraught or Inlett of water into the land.” There are two or three places of this name in the mouth of the Thames. Yantlet Creek is in the Isle of Grain.
Beult.—The final t is not found in the earliest records I have seen, where the name is Beule. One of our best Kent archæologists suggests the Saxon verb Beauland, to turn or twist, as the origin. ”

“ Chester (Castra, a camp) , with its later derivations, the Anglian Caster and the Saxon Chester; and Caerleon (Castra Legionum—the camp of the Legions) ; and of these not one is in Kent. The chief centres of the sparse population, and the natural landmarks of rivers and mountains, preserved the names given 18 earlier by the Celts, while our villages with few exceptions are Scandinavian or Teutonic, otherwise Norse or Saxon. Prof. Green, in his History of the English People, is doubtless right in saying that “only in the great towns were the Britons Romanized. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Elesford, our Aylesford, is so spelled in Domesday, but in the Saxon Chronicle it is Egelsford, and in Nennius Egisford. It may very well have been named by the Saxons after the Teutonic hero-archer or demigod Eigil, though the Celtic Eglwys, a church, has been suggested. It also appears as Ægelesthrep, and for this a personal name (e.g., Ecglaf) , with threp or thorp for town has been suggested. But thorp we get from the Danes, and find chiefly in the N.E. There are none in Kent. ”

“ Borowart, Boro-wara-lest, was named from Canterbury, the chief borough in Kent, and so means the people of the borough, the chief one. Later it was named from S. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, to which a great part of the land in the Lathe belonged.
Estrei, or Estre Last, named from the ancient town of Eastry (which may enshrine the name of the Saxon goddess of Spring, Eastre—whence our Easter, from the Christian festival coinciding in time with the heathen festival) was absorbed into the Lathe of S. Augustine. ”

“ The more important river Lea on the opposite side of the Thames is called Lygan in the Saxon Chronicle. In Essex also there is the Lea-beck, which shows a Celtic name with a suffix attributable to the Danish marauders whose becks are more common in the north of England. ”

“ And “Kits Coty House” on our neighbouring Down gives us Ked—a hollow, and Coit—a wood, i.e., the hollow dolmen in the wood. Mote Park sounds modern enough to some; but our “park” is the Celtic parwyg, an enclosed place, while the much later Anglo-Saxon Mote denotes a place of local assembly. Dun was their word for a hill-fort, and so we have Croydon (with a Saxon prefix) for the fortress on the chalk range, though most of the old British fortresses which preserved the name when occupied by Romans or Saxons are in other counties. ”

“ 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, 48 in which we may perhaps find the Saxon Heorat—stag, hart—as in Hartlip and Hartbourne, and ea—island. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Following the conquerors came colonists, and in the Saxon districts of England (and Kent is the most Saxon of all) we find the names, not of individual immigrants, but of families or clans. These family settlements are denoted by the termination ing, which was the usual Anglo-Saxon patronymic, corresponding to our later “son” in Johnson, etc. ”

“ There is, however, obviously much to be done before we can know—or even in some cases guess—as to the origin of some “tons” or “stones.”
Our “Hams.”
In considering the three score and ten, or more, place-names in Kent which end in ham, we are met with the initial difficulty that there are two Saxon words Ham—home, and Hamm—land drained by dykes, an East Friesian word, though the far more common Ham is the Teutonic heim, familiar as a suffix in Germany, which in Picardy becomes hen, and in Friesland um. ”

“ Mersham is the Mersc home in Romney Marsh. Westerham, of old Ostreham (compare Westenhanger alias Ostringhanger) is the little white “home in the west” of Kent. Ickham—Ioccham in a charter of 785, in Andrededa—otherwise Yeckham, is probably the settlement on the yoke of arable land, from the Saxon measure Yeok. Chartham (Certeham in Domesday) is the home in the forest, chart and hart being varying forms of the Teutonic word for forest, the former more common in England, the latter in Germany. Perhamsted, says McClure, is the homestead where pears were cultivated. ”

“ Maidstone, again, should probably be Maidston, being Medwegston in the Saxon Chronicle, and almost certainly meaning the town on the Medway; although it is fair to say that an ending in stane is early found. Tilmanstone was earlier Telmeston, and Elmstone was Elmerston, and the earlier spellings of Goodnestone are Goodwinston, Gudewynston, and Goodneston.
Stones are much fewer than “tons,” although no doubt the number of such marks (origin of our milestones) was increased by the Romans. ”