The Kepier Hospital.
Two of the place-names, Harthope and Swinhope, carry us back to the wild beasts of the forest. One was the lodging-ground or resort of the hart or stag, Anglo-Saxon heort; and the other gets its initial component from Anglo-Saxon swin, swyn, a swine; Old German suin, traceable back to the Sanskrit su. The boar tusks found in Heatheryburn Cave, and the Roman altar at Stanhope Rectory, testify to Weardale being the abode of boars. The local word aswin, obliquely, Welsh asswyn, does not apply to this place-name. A far more probable etymology is the Celtic swyn, holy. Charnock is of opinion that the several rivers named "swine" or "swin" may be from this root.
Bolihope, the name of a considerable subvalley on the south of Frosterley and Stanhope, is interesting, if not so easily explained. The name is evidently associated with the district of Frosterley, where the stream from Bolihope enters the Wear. At this village we have as place-names Bottlingham and Bot’s Well, and the ancient chapel is said to have been dedicated to St. Botolph. Bishop Beck granted to Walter Berington twenty-seven acres of land in Bothelinghopp. The initial component would suggest the Anglo-Saxon botel, botl, botles, an abode, mansion, or dwelling; also Norse botl, German buttel. Leo, however, says that very few Anglo-Saxon names of places are united with this word. Bolton was formerly written Bodeltune. This, however, does not appear to be the etymon of the name in question, as botel and ham, both Saxon for a dwelling, would not be found in one name. A large number of names of places have the Saxon patronymic ing, which often forms the medial syllable, such as Wolsingham, Darlington, Easington, Washington, Heighington, and, if the medial syllable of the name under consideration be the Saxon patronymic, then it is an Anglo-Saxon place-name—the home of the sons of some Saxon named Bottel. Bot is a Scandinavian personal name, but we find the Saxon Byttingas and Potingas, Liber Vitæ, Bota, and Frisian Botte. The personal name Pottel—which by the law of interchange of initial letters might become Bottel—would explain that the hope and the ham were belonging to the son of some Saxon settler of this name, as elsewhere mentioned.
Boltshope is a small offshoot from Rookhope. Bolt, as an iron-door bolt, is from Anglo-Saxon and Danish bolt, German bolgen, from the root bole, round as the bole of a tree. The Anglo-Saxon bold, bolt, originally búld, búlt, means a house or dwelling, an abode; Danish bolig; and we have mention made in Hatfield of Bold Shell in Rookhope. Boltsburn is the village of the Rookhope Valley, and is situated at the foot of Boltshopeburn. At the top of the hope is Bolts Law, which is probably the place earliest named, and in all probability is from a personal name. Bold Shield would not be from the Anglo-Saxon bold, an abode, but is evidently Bold’s shield, the shield, or home, of Bold, as the eminence might be the law of Bold or Bolt.
Dene is from the Celto-Saxon den, a deep, wooded valley; Anglo-Saxon den, dene, denn. The best specimen of this kind of valley in the county of Durham is probably Castle Eden Dene, a wooded, narrow valley near the sea. Its name is interesting, and contains the ancient and modern spelling. Its earliest name was evidently Eden, from ea or e, water, and den, a wooded valley; and this becoming a proper name, a second den was added—namely, Eden Dene, which gives us water-dene-dene. We have also in the north Hesleden, Deneholm, and Hardwick Dene.
Burn, grain, broc, are allied. The first of these may be said to be as pure Weardale as Saxon. Whilst the Norse beck crowds the banks of Teesdale, it does not exist in Weardale. Burn spreads from this dale northward through Durham, Northumberland, and Scotland. Beck is as foreign to Weardale as the Danish test-word by and the Norwegian thwaite, though all the three names crowd around, close to the very hills on the south and west of the dale of the Wear. Within the bounds of Stanhope parish the Wear is fed by several tributary burns. These streams receive or are formed at the head by grains, and the grains are fed by springs from the brocks. Brock is from Anglo-Saxon broc, brece, to break forth—the place where the water first breaks through the earth—hence brook, literally water running through the earth. A brock is a little hollow a few feet wide, formed by water breaking through the ground, and washing out a miniature valley. The moors of Weardale and surrounding district abound with these broken places, which are mostly known to shepherds and game-shooters. They exist on the top of the fells, where they are the only natural shelters. Platey Brock, on Chapel Fell, receives its name from an exposed plate or shale bed. To show how numerous these places are, I will mention that on Burnhope Moor there are also Coldberry Brocks, Limestone Brocks, Highfield Brocks, Wester Langtayhead Brocks, Todsyke Brocks, Lodgegill Brocks, Scraith Head Brocks, Browngill Brock, Cocklake Brock, Sally-Grain Brocks, Lang Brock. To the above may be added the better-known names of Black Brocks, or Moss Brocks, in Burnhope, and Welhope Brocks.
Grain, Icelandic grein, is a division, a branch, as the grain of a fork; Danish green, a branch, a bough. Generally the branches at the head of a burn are distinguished by north and south, and east and west grains; and sometimes by name, as Sally Grain in Burnhope, and Jopla Grains in Bolihope. "East Graine under Craggs" is in Bolihope. At Harthope Head there are the east and west grains, which meet and form the burn. In addition to the sixteen hopes previously mentioned, from twelve of which flow the principal tributary burns to the Wear, there are some thirty secondary streams, named burn, Anglo-Saxon burne, a bourn, stream, brook, river, and which are distinguished by the names of the hope, or place, from which they flow, or from some other characteristic feature or condition.
Sowen Burn, near Stanhope, is a very characteristic specimen, the adjectival component being the Old English sounen, sound, the noisy burn, or, rather, the sounding burn.