|
|
| Place Names - how where became there... |
|
The big
house on the hill - the bridge by the orchard - auntie's house
- the farm by the waterfall. We all use phrases like this to describe certain places. Landmarks such as churches, public house and shops are used to tell someone where we mean when we refer to a certain place. |
|
Before the growth of towns and urban
sprawl the helpful guide would have had to rely on natural phenomenon
such as woods, rivers and hills or man-made landmarks to direct
a traveller. Over a period of time the local people, by just
using a shortened version of the description, could indicate
a particular place. A traveller asking what a place was called
would be told the local, possibly shortened description of the
place. This, in time, led to a specific place having a specific name even though the circumstances that generated the name may have long since vanished. As the spelling of place names changes over the years it is useful to have the original, or earliest, version of a place name. The Doomsday Book of 1086 is a useful source of reference. |
| In the area of Leeds there are many languages represented in the place names. Celtic, Old English, Scandinavian and even Welsh is present. |
|
In Old English the word for an enclosure/farmstead
was 'ton' or 'tun'. The word for a woodland clearing/pasture
was 'ley' or 'leah'. The farmers Cola (ton), Mensa(ton), Mann(ton), Aethelwald(ley), Otta(ley) and Erme(ley) contributed Colton, Menston, Manston, Alwoodley, Otley and Armley to the Leeds map. |
 |
| The freemen or peasants, in Old Scandinavian 'karl', had a ton, as did the priests, and left us Carlton and Preston. |
|
Sometimes it was what grew at the location
that produced the name. Wyrt (OE for vegetables), broom, ferns and alder trees gave us Wortley, Bramley, Farnley and Allerton. The clearings near the fortified place (buhr), the moor and in the corner of a piece of land contributed Burley, Morley and Halton. |
| An OE 'hop' was a small enclosed valley. The farmer Ecca lived at Eccup and the valley where broom grew was at Bramhope. |
 |
A 'wic' was a farm usually of dairy produce. There is more than one village around Leeds today called Wike. The OE for 'cheese' is 'cese' or in OS 'kese'. A little way to the north of Leeds we have a small village , Keswick. Here we have the OE 'east' and 'wic' and an OE word modified by the incoming Norsemen. The place name clearly shows not only the original function of the place, but also tells a story of the movement of people, invasion, and absorption by different cultures. Cultures in a cheese farm anyone !? |
|
A 'thorp' was an outlying farm. The thorp to the east was at Austhorpe, Oswin's thorp was at Osmondthorpe and the de Arches family had a thorp at Thorp Arch. A ford then, as it is today, was a place
to cross water. A croft is a small enclosed field. A gap (sceard) through the landscape was at Scarcroft and another croft was beside a pool (sae) at Seacroft. Granges were outlying farms dependent upon a religious house. Kirkstall Abbey held much land in the Leeds area. The Abbey had several granges, West Park, Roundhay and Allerton are just three. |
|
Finally, some of the more unusual places around Leeds. An old Scandinavian would have called a
temporary hut/shed a 'skali'. Evidently there were some at Scholes. This page just scans the surface of the
subject of place names. Many books have been written on the subject
and there are even societies devoted to the subject. |
 |
|
|
|
|
next article |