Our “Burys.”
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 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. As these British camps were generally on high ground for observation and for defence, the ideas represented by Beorh and by Buruh would inevitably intertwine. 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. Canterbury, for example, began as Cantwara-byrig, the fort of the folk of Kent, long before it developed into its most important borough or city. So, in another county, Glæstingaberig became Glastonbury.
In Kent we find Farnborough, Frindsbury, Wateringbury, Hildenborough, Pembury, Cobhambury, Southborough, Oldbury, Bigbury, Glassenbury, two Hawkenburies, Holborough, Howbury, Scadbury, Goodbury, Eastbury, Fallburie, Stockbury (where the ditch and bank had been supplemented by a palisade of stocks, the predecessor of our fathers’ cheveaux de frise in warlike defence), Binbury, Westborough (in Maidstone above and defending the Medway), Woodnesbury, Willesborough, Queenborough, Richborough, Bidborough, Marshborough, Statenborough, Tattlebury, Downbury, Hockenbury, Dunbury and Tatlingbury—a long list which predicates long years, or rather centuries, of fighting in defence, as much as my previous list of forestal names proves how much of Kent was covered with woods.
Some of these, like Oldbury and Bigbury, are undoubtedly old British camps or forts; others were adapted, or newly made, by Romans and, later, by Saxons, while again later still a Norman castle might be reared on the old strategic spot, as in the case of Thornham Castle, near me. Flinders Petrie, however, says that “many sites which by their name of bury suggest a camp or fort are now bare of remains.” So he writes after examining Downbury Farm, near Pembury, Hockenbury, and Dunbury, near Staplehurst, Tattlebury near Headcorn, Tatlingbury near Capel, Perry Hill near Cooling, Pembury, Frindsbury and Wateringbury.
Our Barrows in Kent are mainly small, graves rather than mounds, but we have the place-names Barrow Green, Barrow Hill near Ashford, and Barrow Hill by Sellindge.