These extensive tracts of marsh-land cannot be supposed, especially at the very early period when the name of ham was imposed upon them, to have represented “an enclosure,” whilst their general character, and their liability to be frequently flooded, alike forbid the notion that the name of ham in this case was originally associated with a “home or dwelling.”
Each of these “hams,” then, I apprehend must be held to furnish a marked example of the derivation of its name from the Celtic Avon, as it will be found that the distinctive feature of a river is present in each of them, and in one case the river even still retains the original Celtic name of Avon.
As examples of some instances of the name occurring on the banks of the rivers in Somerset, we have the Loxton Hams, the Berrow Hams, the Paulet Hams with Otterhampton, which latter name, assuming its derivation to be Teutonic, should be the “Otter’s home-town”! Biddisham, Burnham, and Lympsham, the latter being the ancient Lyn-pils-ham, the rich pasture land by the creek of the Lyn or the River Axe, with many others.
Passing now into Devonshire we come upon the North Hams, and the South Hams—names which in this case cannot be held to represent either homes or enclosures, whilst water or rivers will be found to be conspicuously present in both instances.
In his review of “Risdon’s Survey of Devon,” 1785, Chapple refers to the North and South Hams as being “ancient names,” and states that the county of Devon had originally a threefold division, anciently known by the names of East, South, and North Hams (p. 116). This, however, is the only notice I have seen of the East Hams.
As one of the places comprehended in the district of the North Hams, we have Littleham, which Risdon regards as “Little Home,” assuming-ham in this case “to signify the same with home or habitation.”
But there is no reason to regard either this or Parkham or any of the other instances of the terminal-ham which are found here, as being referable to a Teutonic source, any more than is the case with the hams in Somerset, and as regards the instance of Northam itself, it is interesting to note that (except the omitted ton) we have here the actual name of Northam[p]ton, in which Camden expressly insists that the ham is afon.
If we now proceed to the South Hams, we reach an extensive tract of land presenting the same characteristic features as those generally observed in connection with the name of Ham, where it occurs in the situations already alluded to, and which do not correspond either to an enclosure or a home.
We find it, for example, stated in Chapple that “about Teignmouth, Dartmouth, Totness, Modbury, Plymouth, Ashburton, and all those parts of the country which are called the South Hams, the lands are generally of a different kind from any of the former,” &c. (p. 20). Now it is manifest that such an extensive tract of country as that to which the term “South Hams” is here applied cannot possibly claim to be regarded in the light of a home, or an enclosure.
On investigating more closely the district known as the South Hams, it will be found to possess many points of special interest.