The Dyke or Dykes, Broadclough, Bacup.
This mighty entrenchment is over 600 yards in length and for over 400 yards of the line is 18 yards broad at the bottom. No satisfactory solution has yet been offered of the cause of this gigantic work or of the use to which it was put originally. Speaking of it Newbigging ("History of Rossendale") says:—
"The careful investigations of Mr. Wilkinson have invested this singular work with more of interest than had before been associated with it, by his having with marked ability and perseverance, collected together a mass of exhaustive evidence, enforced by a chain of argument the most conclusive, with regard to the much debated locality of the great struggle between the Saxons and the Danes, which he endeavours, and most successfully, to show is to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of Burnley, and in connection with which the earthwork in question constituted, probably, a not unimportant adjunct."
Again, he says:—
"If Saxonfield (Saxifield) near Burnley, was the scene of the engagement between the troops of Athelstan and Anlaf, then it is in the highest degree probable that one or other of the rival armies, most likely that of the Saxon King, forced, or attempted to force a passage through the valley of the Irwell and that there they were encountered by the confederated hosts intrenched behind the vast earthwork at Broadclough that commanded the line of their march. Whether this was taken in flank or rear by the Saxon warriors, or whether it was successful in arresting their progress, or delaying a portion of their army, it is impossible to determine; but that it was constructed for weighty strategical purposes, under the belief that its position was of the last importance, so much of the remains of the extraordinary which still exists affords sufficient evidence."
[Place-Names]
[CHAPTER III.]
Place-Names.
An eloquent modern writer has declared, with a good reason, that even if all other records had perished, "anyone with skill to analyse the language, might re-create for himself the history of the people speaking that language, and might come to appreciate the divers elements out of which that people was composed, in what proportion they were mingled, and in what succession they followed one upon the other." From a careful analysis of the names of the more prominent features of the land; of its divisions, its towns and villages, and even its streets, as well as the nomenclature of its legal, civil, and political institutions, its implements of agriculture, its weapons of war, and its articles of food and clothing,—all these will yield a vast fund of history.
The place-name Liverpool has been the greatest puzzle to local etymologists. From the earliest known spelling—recorded in a deed of the time of Richard I. 1189–99, where the form is Leverpool—to the present, it has gone through more changes than any other local name. As the Norse element in the vicinity of Liverpool has been very great, we may assume the original derivation to come from "hlith," the old Norse for a "slope." The north dialect also contains the word "lither" meaning sluggish. It is an adjective bearing the same meaning as the modern English "lithe," pliant, or gentle. The names Lithgoe, Lethbridge, Clitheroe, and Litherland may be derived from it.
From the peaceful reign of Canute, or Knut, we derive the nautical term, some place-names—Knuts-ford, Knott End, Knot Mill, Knottingley. Knot, from old Norse "Knutr," and "Knotta," a ball, was the name given to the measurement of speed of a ship. Fifty feet was the distance allowed between the knots on the cord, and as many as ran out in half a minute by the sand-glass indicated the speed of the ship. And thus we speak of a 10 knot breeze blowing.[B]
Hope, as a place-name, is common from the Orkneys to the Midlands, and is derived from an old Norse word "hoop," for a small land-locked bay, inlet or a small enclosed valley, or branch from the main dale. Hope is a common place-name, as well as a surname. In compounds we find it in Hopekirk, Hopeton, Hapton, Hopehead, Dryhope.
From "Trow," a trough, we derive Trowbridge, Troughton, Trawden, and probably Rawtenstall.
The battle of Brunanburg, which took place in the year 937, is supposed to have been fought on the site of the modern Burnley, on the river Brun. King Olaf brought his men over in 600 ships, many containing over 100 men each. He was defeated by Athelstane and his brother Edmund. There was until recently pulled down in Burnley a house called Danes-house. Though the Danes lost this battle, the northern bards recorded its bravery in their war songs, of which their Sagas or legends still preserve some remains.
Among the chief followers of King Athelstane in 931, who subdued the Danish kingdom in England, we find the names of the following Jarls: Urm, Gudrum, Ingrard, Hadder, Haward, Healden, Rengwald, Scule, and Gunner. It is not difficult to recognise modern surnames from this list, such as Urmston, Guthrie, Hodder, Howard, Holden, Heald, Reynolds, Scholes, and Gunning.
"Northumbria was the literary centre of the Christian world in Western Europe," says John Richard Green; and the learning of the age was directed by the Northumbrian scholar Baeda, the venerable Bede.