"Upon the cope right of his nose he hade
A werte, and thereon stood a toft of herys."
(A. 554.)
Another name for a hill-top appears in Peak, Pike, Peck, or Pick, but the many compounds in Pick-, e.g. Pickbourne, Pickford, Pickwick, etc., suggest a personal name Pick of which we have the dim. in Pickett (cf. Fr. Picot) and the softened Piggot. Peak may be in some cases from the Derbyshire Peak, which has, however, no connection with the common noun peak. A mere hillock or knoll has given the names Knapp, Knollys or Knowles, Knock, and Knott. But Knapp may also be for Mid. Eng. nape, cognate with knave and with Low Ger. Knappe, squire—
"Wer wagt es, Rittersmann oder Knapp'.
Zu tauchen in diesen Schlund?"
(Schiller, Der Taucher, 1. I.)
Redknap, the name of a Richmond boat-builder, is probably a nickname, like Redhead. A Knapper may have lived on a "knap," or may have been one of the Suffolk flint-knappers, who still prepare gun-flints for weapons to be retailed to the heathen.
Knock and Knocker are both Kentish names, and there is a reef off Margate known as the Kentish Knock. We have the plural Knox (cf. Bax, Settlements and Enclosures, Chapter XIII). Knott is sometimes for Cnut, or Canute, which generally becomes Nutt. Both have got mixed with the nickname Nott.
A green knoll was also called Toft (Scand.), whence Langtoft, and the name was used later for a homestead. From Cliff we have Clift, [Footnote: This may also be from Mid. Eng, clift, a cleft.] with excrescent -t, and the cognates Cleeve and Clive. Compounds of Cliff are Radcliffe (red), Sutcliffe (south), Wyclif (white). The c- sometimes disappears in compounds, e.g. Cunliffe, earlier Cunde-clive, and Topliff; but Ayliffe is for AElfgifu or AEthelgifu and Goodliffe from Godleof (cf. Ger. Gottlieb). The older form of Stone appears in Staines, Stanhope, Stanton, etc. Wheatstone is either for "white stone" or for the local Whetstone (Middlesex). In Balderstone, Johnston, Edmondstone, Livingstone, the suffix is -ton, though the frequence of Johnston points to corruption from Johnson, just as in Nottingham we have the converse case of Beeson from the local Beeston. In Hailstone the first element may be Mid. Eng, half, holy. Another Mid. English name for a stone appears in Hone, now used only of a whetstone.
A hollow or valley in the hillside was called in the north Clough, also spelt Clow, Cleugh (Clim o' the Cleugh), and Clew. The compound Fairclough is found corrupted into Faircloth. Another obscure northern name for a glen was Hope, whence Allsop, Blenkinsop, the first element in each being perhaps the name of the first settler, and Burnup, Hartopp, (hart), Harrap (hare), Heslop (hazel).
Gill (Scand.), a ravine, has given Fothergill, Pickersgill, and Gaskell, from Gaisgill (Westmorland). These, like most of our names connected with mountain scenery, are naturally found almost exclusively in the north. Other surnames which belong more or less to the hill country are Hole, found also as Holl, Hoole, and Hoyle, but perhaps meaning merely a depression in the land, Ridge, and its northern form Rigg, with their compounds Doddridge, Langridge, Brownrigg, Hazelrigg, etc. Ridge, Rigg, also appear as Rudge, Rugg. From Mid. Eng. raike, a path, a sheep-track (Scand.), we get Raikes and perhaps Greatorex, found earlier as Greatrakes, the name of a famous faith-healer of the seventeenth century.