Day Forty Six

What’s in a name?

When we  lived in Cornwall, my son and I went to a folk festival in a delightful place called Skinner’s Bottom, which so amused my little boy that we didn’t worry about the torrential rain which swamped our tent.

Having such an ancient history and suffering many invasions, Great Britain has many unusual place names: Norse, Anglo Saxon and Roman.

Pratt’s Bottom also amuses more than school children and there are many ‘Bottoms’ in the UK, it simply means a valley or deep hollow.

Scratchy Bottom in Dorset was featured in the film, ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ and is not far from the hamlet of Shitterton  voted ‘Britain’s worst place name’ in 2012.

Residents however, are proud of their 1,000 year history; the name accurately describes a place which was set aside to function as a community lavatory.

What a pity it’s a long way from Peover Superior in Cheshire.

In 2012, as a result of multiple thefts of the Shittington sign, a group of residents  chipped in to buy a 1.5 ton block of local Purbeck Stone to replace them.   

Try pinching that!

 If you want quiet nights, better not live in Great Snoring, or Snoring Magna  in Norfolk. The 1086 Domesday Book uses the Saxon name,  Snarringes, the name of an inhabitant called Snear. 

I wonder if he snored? Snear the Snorer. 

It stands by the River Stiffkey, pronounced ‘Stewkey’.  In fact the area has been famous for its cockles, an edible saltwater clam, called ‘Stewkey Blues.’     

 

Barton in the Beans, Leicestershire,  was part of the lands given to Hugh de Grandmesne by William the Conqueror.

The village, also known as Barton-in-Fabris  was famous for growing Broad Beans vicia faba.  Over time, Barton in Fabris became Barton Beans.

Curry Mallet  is in Somerset and in 1086, owned by Roger de Courselles and later,, in 1215 by  Willliam Malet one of the Barons who hammered King John into signing the Magna Carta.

The Manor House  is the site of supernatural apparitions: a woman in Elizabethan dress and a man who marches up and down.  Several people have also heard sword fights, metal against metal.   

Possibly this only happens when they’ve eaten a particularly hot Vindaloo?

Or maybe they’ve just arrived in Curry Mallet from Nether Wallop,  the ancient village used in the Miss Marple films.

Nether Wallop, named Britains Prettiest Village.

 In various parts of the British Isles, you’ll find Throop, Droop and Shepton Mallet; Plumpton, Lickfold, Warninglid and New Invention. 

Marsh Gibbon, Bishop's Itchington and Queen Camel.

A possibly Bronze Age megalith on Blubberhouse Moor

Blubberhouses on the Yorkshire moors has nothing to do with whales.  

This unpreposessing name has prettier, Anglo-Saxon origins, meaning, 'a house by a bubbling stream.'

Not too far away you’ll find  Wetwang and Wetwang Slack, Norse names said to indicate a wet or marshy  field.  As they’re near a dry field on higher ground, now called Driffield, it may well be true.

Heaton Royds Farm at Six Days Only

When I was a girl, I often walked to Six Days Only a small hamlet on Shay Lane in Heaton.  

Here, I and any other walker taking this popular route,  could knock on the door of a small cottage and ask for non-alcoholic Nettle Beer.  It cost  6d (sixpence) at the time and was absolutely delicious.

Adjacent to the cottages was a large market garden, the Head Gardener being a Mr Gudgeon,  who told me the strange name came from Victorian times.  

The cottagers used to sell Nettle and Ginger Beer plus produce from the gardens. 

However,  Sunday was by far the busiest time for passing trade, as most people loved to take this walk after Sunday dinner. 

Young men would often stop and ask for posies for their sweethearts.

The demand for refreshments, especially in Summer, became too much. So the farm owner put up a sign, “Six Days Only” and the name stuck.

Another place familiar to my family is the Cornish hamlet of Indian Queens, not too far from Summercourt, whose annual Fair is, at 800 years, the oldest in Britain.

Indian Queens, in Cornish Myghternes Eyndek, had at one time a coaching inn of the same name, on a plot called White Splat (yes, seagulls come to mind, it’s only 7km from the sea at Newquay).

It is said the name was given as a result of the legend which states  Pocahontas, princess of the Powhatan nation, she who saved John Smith from death, stayed in the area.

Pocahontas - Rebecca

But wait…. There’s another legend:

A Portuguese princess landed at Falmouth and stayed the night at the inn. 
Local people, unfamiliar with the Portugese but aware Indian traders  had darker skin, assumed she was from Calcutta. 


Place names tell the history of a country and each one has its idiosycrasies; it's fascinating to know and imagine how they all came about.