Place Names in Kent

by J. W. Horsley

Few, indeed, are the verbal relics of the Romans, though they were here for 400 years. While the earlier Celts have bequeathed to us many words and names, but few works, the Romans left us few words but some mighty works.

Teutonic (Jutish) Names in Kent.

The Romans who had conquered, ruled, and exploited our land for four centuries, departed in A.D. 411, owing to the dire necessity of defending their own land against the Goths from Northern Europe. Already here they had been attacked and pressed southwards by the Picts of the Highlands, aided by the Scots of Ireland. To avoid Pictish conquest the Britons offered land and pay to the English, who up to then had been aiding the Picts.

Who were these English? A long peninsula runs northwards (as few do) from Denmark, and separates the North Sea from the Baltic. Herein, our real home or cradle, dwelt three tribes of the Low German stock, Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, and as to Kent it was the Jutes from Jutland who, under Hengist and Horsa, in A.D. 449, landed at Ebbsfleet in Thanet, as did others in the Isle of Wight, the Islands in both cases forming a great naval and military station, from which the hinterlands of Kent and Hants could be overrun. The later, and larger, seizures of the Saxons were all the southern counties, Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, and Wessex, while the sphere of the Angles spread upwards from what we still call East Anglia. Quarrels with these mercenaries arose as to pay, and the Britons of Kent resolved to fight. Hrofesceastre was too strong, and so southward turned Hengist along the Celtic country by Kits Coty House, and then swooped down on Aylesford and won a battle which meant the winning of England. Horsa fell in the moment of victory, and the flint heap of Horsted preserves his name, and has been held to mark his grave. Kentish landowners fled to France; the British labourers to the vast forest; churches gave no sanctuary, for the heathen Jutes raged most against the clergy.

And so for two centuries the war of dispossession and slaughter went on, until Britain was a land, not of Britons, but of Englishmen (Angles, or Anglo-Saxons, as they are also called), while even of their language, as we have seen, few words lingered. Six years later the shore-castles of Dover, Richborough, and Lympne succumbed. Then, in A.D. 447, another tribe, the Saxons, came for a share in the goodly spoil, overran Anderida, the fortress of the great forest, and “slew all that were herein, nor was there afterwards one Briton left,” at any rate, in Kent. This Saxon, or strictly speaking, Jutish, invasion has given us most of our blood, and the greater part of our tongue, our territorial divisions, most names of places, and those of the days of the week.

Following the conquerors came colonists, and in the Saxon districts of England (and Kent is the most Saxon of all) we find the names, not of individual immigrants, but of families or clans. These family settlements are denoted by the termination ing, which was the usual Anglo-Saxon patronymic, corresponding to our later “son” in Johnson, etc. So the sons of Charles Brown, who died in Detling, would in earlier days be called the Brownings—as the progeny of a duck are ducklings, and of a goose goslings. It has been held that when the suffix ham or ton is added it denotes a filial colony or offshoot from the original settlement of the clan. There are between two and three thousand places in England which contain the root “ing,” although some (mainly in the north) come from a Norse and substantive “eng” or “ing” which means meadow. Kemble makes 22 original settlements in Kent, and 29 filial offshoots, whereas the western or northern counties have no original, although, between them, 169 filial settlements.

If we may thus distinguish two classes of place names which survive in Kent, we have the Bobbings at Bobbing, the Hôcings at Hucking, the Harlings at Harling, the Boerlings at Barling, the Berlings at Birling, the Bollings at Bowling, the Garlings at Garlinge, the Hallings at Halling, the Hircelings at Hecklinge, the Horings at Herringe, the Mollings at Mailing, the Wealings at Welling, the Beltings at Beltring, the Cerrings at Charing, the Petlings at Pedling, the Wickings at Witchling, the Bermarings at Barming. In one case, however, an individual is commemorated in a place-name—Hemmings Bay, near Margate, is the scene of the landing of a Danish chieftain in 1009 A. D. There were many Saxons in Thanet under Roman rule (as interments have shown), but few place names are found there of the patronymic kind, the exceptions being Garlinge, Birchington, Halling Court, Osinghelle, Ellington, and Newington—of which some are doubtful. What about Detling? one of my readers may say. I inclined for some time to the meaning deep meadow (as Deptford is the deep fiord or bay), in allusion to its position between the vast forest above and the extensive marshes below; but Mr. McClure will not hear of “ing” a meadow, in the South of England, and one Oxford Professor of Anglo-Saxon writes me as follows: “The evidence for ing ‘meadow,’ south of Lincolnshire is so scanty or dubious that it would require pretty strong evidence to establish its recurrence in Kent place-names.” In that case one must fall back upon a Saxon ancestor, and lately in Maidstone were found both Major D’Aeth and Mr. De’Ath, whose families would be Deathlings in early Saxon days.

Then, of offshoots, we have in Kent the Ælingtons at Allington, the Ellings at Ellington, the Aldings at Aldington, the Eorpings at Orpington, the Bennings at Boddington, the Gillings at Gillingham, the Cennings at Kennington, the Cosings at Cossington, the Dodings at Doddington, the Dœfings at Davington, the Leasings at Lossenham, the Pœfings at Pevington, the Syfings at Sevington, the Wickings at Wickinghurst, the Lodings at Loddington, the Ellings at Ellington, the Bosings at Bossingden (and Bossenden), the Adings at Addington, the Œslings at Ashlingham, and possibly the Beecings at Birchington and Beckenham. As illustrating the westward migration of the Teutonic race we may note, to take one clan, that, starting from Germany, the Hemings name Hemingen in Germany, Hemminghausen in Westphalia, Hemingstadt in Holstein, Heming in Lorraine and in Alsace, Hemington in Northamptonshire and Somerset, and Hemingbrough in Yorks.

It may help some in their enquiry into the origin of place-names if I note that of old, and by Saxon lips, the vowel “e” was pronounced like our “a.” So, in the case of Berfreystone, Berham, Bernefield, Chert, Chertham, Crey, Dertford, Esseherst, Essetlesford, Freningham, Herietsham, Herty, Hertleye, Hese, Mergate, Remmesgate, Reyersh, Smeredenne, and Werehorne—the vowel sound remaining although the vowel was changed when, for example, Hese became our Hayes. And another point is that in the Kentish dialect th (a separate character in Saxon) often becomes d, e.g., gardering for gathering, and dare and dem for there and them. This still survives in remote places and aged persons. So Beddersden for Bethersden.

I may here add some instances of what in some cases aids, and in other cases hinders, a knowledge of the origin and meaning of a place-name—that is the very various ways in which the name has been spelled. Generally, the earlier the form the better guide to the meaning. It will be found that spelling was often so vague that even a lawyer in writing an old record or will may spell a name differently in the same document, and in most cases in mediæval times the sound of the word ruled its spelling. Some examples of multiform names in Kent I give here.