The W G Hoskins Lecture 2006

‘Place-names and Landscapes’ presented by Dr. Margaret Gelling.

The Seventeenth Hoskins Lecture

3 June 2006

The Hoskins Lecture was given this year on 3rd June by Dr Margaret Gelling. Introducing the speaker, our chairman, Pam Fisher, noted that Dr Gelling was well-known to many past and present members of the Centre either personally or through her important published work, especially her seminal book Signposts to the Past (1978) and more recently The Landscape of Place-names (2000).

Dr Gelling commenced by recalling the time, c.1980, when she realised that if one intended to write about a place with a name such as Green Valley or Green Hill, it might be a good idea to visit the place concerned in order to see what it actually looked like and how it fitted in with its surrounding landscape. From this she realised that it would be necessary to make a systematic record of settlements that owe their name to some landscape feature. From this she has been able to build up a more detailed understanding of the Anglo-Saxon method of naming settlements in relation to the landscape. She felt that previous scholars had not studied the Anglo-Saxon approach in sufficient depth.

Following extensive study of the subject she now considers that the Anglo-Saxons consciously developed a method of naming topographical features in such a way that it would be possible for travellers to travel the length and breadth of the country using features in the landscape as markers. It can be shown that similar topographical features were given similar names, irrespective of where they were in the country. The key to this study is the great variety of names used by the Anglo-Saxons to describe different types of hill or valley and so enabled a traveller to distinguish one type of hill from another. Dr Gelling cautioned the audience interpreting place-names from the modern spelling.

To illustrate her argument Dr Gelling showed by the use of slides how this was achieved. But it was at this stage that technology sought to limit the power of human endeavour by refusing to run one set of slides. It had been her intention to show two slides simultaneously of similar landscape features with a common place-name origin, but in different parts of the country. Only one set of slides could be shown but she took this limitation in her stride and was able to describe the missing slides in such a way that the audience could easily follow the argument that was being made.

The Anglo-Saxons used a variety of words to describe different types of hill, ‘dun’, ‘beorg’, ‘drug’ etc. Settlement names derived from ‘dun’ tend to be located in areas lying between 200 and 500 feet. The hill itself is likely to be low with a fairly extensive level summit that could be easily settled. ‘Dun’ sites are not spectacular but fit in with a generally lowland landscape.

Another example of a low hill in this type of landscape is represented by names such as Garsington or Garsendun, meaning a grassy hill. Other place-names of this order include Steeple Clayton (Bucks), Shodesdon (Salop), Farringdon (Berks).

Yet another word for hill comes from the Welsh word ‘crugg’ and refers to an isolated spike hill that makes a visual impact. Place-names using this base may be found as far away as Cricbarrow hill near Taunton, Croc hill near Droitwich, Creech on the Isle of Purbeck or Cucorny in Montgomeryshire. Other Anglo-Saxon words describe hills with a range of characteristics such as ‘clif’, a steeply sloped hill, ‘helde’, a gentle slope or ‘bow’, a heel or spur of land.

Valleys were another feature discussed by Dr Gelling as these were features in the landscape that enabled the traveller to find his way round the country. In today’s world we do not analyse the innumerable types of valley in the same way that our forbears did. For example ‘demi’, used in place-names denotes a long valley, usually curving, with a gentle gradient suitable for a road. The Old Norse word ‘dalr’ is similar in meaning, but the area tends to be more rugged and so ‘dales’ are generally more rugged than ‘deans’.

‘Cumb’ valleys, more commonly found in the south west of the country, are on the scarp face of a hill and are enclosed on three sides. They tended to remain small settlements because of the physical difficulty in expanding. The names of another group of settlements originated from Anglo-Saxon ‘hop’,which meant a secret, secluded valley Ratlinghope (Salop) is a good example of such a settlement. Other types of lesser valley features were mentioned and Dr Gelling concluded with the example of ‘corf meating a pass, best illustrated by the location of Corfe Castle in Dorset.

Thanking Dr Gelling for a most interesting talk, Dr Sylvia Pincbes said that she would now look on a journey down the motorway past Taunton with the understanding of an Anglo-Saxon