[CHAPTER XIII THE HAUNTS OF MAN]
"One fels downs firs, another of the same
With crossed poles a little lodge doth frame:
Another mounds it with dry wall about,
And leaves a breach for passage in and out:
With turfs and furze some others yet more gross
Their homely sties in stead of walls inclose:
Some, like the swallow, mud and hay doe mixe
And that about their silly [p. 209] cotes they fixe
Some heals [thatch] their roofer with fearn, or reeds, or rushes,
And some with hides, with oase, with boughs, and bushes,"
(SYLVESTER, The Devine Weekes, )
In almost every case where man has interfered with nature the resulting local name is naturally of Anglo-Saxon or, in some parts of England, of Scandinavian origin. The Roman and French elements in our topographical names are scanty in number, though the former are of frequent occurrence. The chief Latin contributions are -Chester, -cester, -caster, Lat. castrum, a fort, or plural castra, a camp; -street, Lat. via strata, a levelled way; -minster, Lat. monasterium; and -church or -kirk, Greco-Lat. kuriakon, belonging to the Lord. Eccles, Greco-Lat. ecclesia, probably goes back to Celtic Christianity. Street was the high-road, hence Greenstreet. Minster is curiously corrupted in Buckmaster for Buckminster and Kittermaster for Kidderminster, while in its simple form it appears as Minister (Chapter III).
We have a few French place-names, e.g. Beamish (Chapter XIV), Beaumont, Richmond, Richemont, and Malpas (Cheshire), the evil pass, with which we may compare Maltravers. We have the apparent opposite in Bompas, Bumpus, Fr. bon pas, but this was a nickname. Of late there has been a tendency to introduce the French ville, e.g. Bournville, near Birmingham. That part of Margate which ought to be called Northdown is known as Cliftonville, and the inhabitants of the opposite end of the town, dissatisfied with such good names as Westbrook and Rancorn, hanker after Westonville. But these philological atrocities are fortunately too late to be perpetuated as surnames.
I have divided the names in this chapter into those that are connected with
- Settlements and Enclosures,
- Highways and Byways,
- Watercourses,
- Buildings,
- Shop Signs.
And here, as before, names which neither in their simple nor compound form present any difficulty are omitted.
The words which occur most commonly in the names of the modern towns which have sprung from early homesteads are borough or bury, [Footnote: Originally the dative of borough.] by, ham, stoke, stow, thorp, tun or ton, wick, and worth. These names are all of native origin, except by, which indicates a Danish settlement, and wick, which is supposed to be a very early loan from Lat. vicus, cognate with Greek oikos, house. Nearly all of them are common, in their simple form, both as specific place-names and as surnames. Borough, cognate with Ger. Burg, castle, and related to Barrow (Chapter XII), has many variants, Bury, Brough, Borrow, Berry, whence Berryman, and Burgh, the last of which has become Burke in Ireland.