Part 3

Holt-hona = woodcock, or more exactly woodhen, like moorhen. Worhona is Saxon for pheasant. So our Henhurst, Henwood, and Hengrove are the same.

Boece = beech. So our Mark Beech and Bough Beech, near Chiddingstone. This derivation is also one of those suggested for Bearsted, whereof the Saxon name is Beorhham-stede, and the first syllable would be either Beorg-hill or Beorc-beech.

Goss = furze. Gorsley Wood, in Bishopsbourne.

Fleota = estuary or creek. Our Northfleet, Southfleet, Ebbsfleet, and Mearesflete, and Flete.

Haesl = hazel. Hazelwood Hill, in Boughton Malherbe.

Beber = beaver. Beavers flourished in England even in historical times, and gave their name to Beverley, Beaverbrook, etc. May Beaver, near Ashford, derive thus? And the Beverley at Canterbury?

Pearroc = literally a grating—a place fenced in for deer, etc. So Park and Paddock. Paddock Wood.

Hreed = reed. Our Reedham possibly; but it is not on marshy ground.

Hythae = a harbour. Our Hythe, Greenhythe, New Hythe (East Malling), Small Hythe (Tenterden), West Hythe, and Erith (Erehithe—the old landing-place for Lesnes Abbey on the Thames).

Thyrne = thorn. Our Thornham.

Cisil = gravel. Our Chislehurst (Cyselhurst in 973), or gravelly wood.

Cnol = hill-top, as in Knowle, Knowle Hill (in Boughton Malherbe), and Knowlton.

Beyr = shed, cottage. Dr. Sweet makes it the same as Bur (modern Bower). Hence perhaps our Burham and Burmarsh; but the old forms of Burham would point rather to Borow or Borough—the walled settlement.

Aesc = ash. Our Ash, Ashenden, Ashford, Ashley, and Ashurst.

Hlep = leap. Hence Hartlip, of old Hertelepe. There are two places thus named.

Pirge = pear tree. Possibly Perrywood and Perry Street. And Perhamstede according to authorities.

Plum-treu = plum tree. Hence Plumstead—and Plumpton?

Faerh = a young pig, whence our word “farrow.” Considering that the rearing of swine was the chief occupation in the dens, I wonder that no one has suggested this word for the first syllable of Farleigh and Fairlight.

Brycg = bridge. The Saxon had the word, but not many bridges. Most of our eleven place-names in Kent containing this word are of post-Saxon date, while we have fifteen “fords.”

Sae = sea. So our Seasalter and Seabrook.

Aac = oak. We have Ackholt, Acol, Acryse, Oakhurst, Oakley, and Ockholt (now Knockholt).

Elm, borrowed from the Latin Ulmus. The Witch-elm, called Wice in Saxon, is indigenous, the other elm imported. We have Elmley, Elmstead, and Elmstone.

Mistel = mistletoe (ta. fem.—tdig) may appear in Mistleham, near Appledore.

Caelf = calf. The Saxon name for Challock was Caelf-loca-n, _i.e._, enclosed place for calves. The second syllable suggests the Latin locus, but is the source of our English Lock, _i.e._, shut up. So the locks on the river; and pounds for straying cattle are “lokes” in East Anglia.

Pleg-huses = theatres (or recreation grounds). Our Plaistow and Plaxtol.

Syla = wallowing place. So our numerous Soles, which I later enumerate.

Dimhus and Dimhof = hiding or dark place. Our Dymchurch are instances.

Crocc and Hweras are both Saxon for pots. Few know what pure Saxon they use when they talk of crockery-ware. Pottery was always a great industry from Sittingbourne to Sheppey, and the Romans appreciated and extended it. This may account for our Crokham Hill, Crockham, Crockhurst Street, and Crockshard.

Cocca, gen. plural = chickens. Cock St., Cockham Wood, Cockshill, Coxheath, Cockadam Shaw, while in Detling we have Cock-hill, Upper and Lower Cox Street. Some may, of course, be modern and personal names; but I cannot so trace them.

Boley Hill, near Rochester, was undoubtedly a place of civic importance in very early days. It was a Danish meeting place corresponding to our shire-mote at Pennington Heath, and we may best trace its name to a Danish word which we still use—the bole of a tree. This is found in various parts of the Danish district of Lincolnshire, and the reference may be to the hill with a famous tree under which the court of the community was held. Trees, as well as cromlechs or great stones, were common landmarks in Saxon times—hence our various Stones in Kent. Others, however, consider it a corruption of Beaulieu, a name given by the Templars to the sites of their preceptories, and they instance a Boley or Bully Mead in East London, which belonged to the Templars. And others, because of its ancient legal associations, think it should be Bailey Hill, and refer us to the Old Bailey in London.

Farleigh.—On a clear day from Detling Hill we can see, not only Farleigh, near Maidstone, but Fairlight Church, near Hastings. In Saxon days and documents these place-names were the same, and so in Domesday (1086), each is Ferlega, the passage or fareing through the pastures or leys, just as our modern Throwley is Trulega, with the scribes’ variations in 12th century deeds of Thruleghe, Trulleda, Trulea, Thrulege, and Trudlege. Fairlight, therefore, is simply a modern corruption after a fashion which once corrupted the name of Leigh, near Tonbridge, which I find written Legh in 1435, Ligth in 1513, Lyghe in 1525, and Lyght in 1531. It has been suggested that the first syllable may indicate a personal name, Fær; but this seems less tenable.

Borstall, from the Anglo-Saxon Beorg, a hill, and stal, a dwelling (as in Tunstall), means a path up a steep hill. So there is Borstall Hill near Rochester, Bostall Hill near Woolwich, and Borstall Hill by Whitstable. And I have noted a passage in White’s _Selborne_—he made a path up the wooded steep hill near his vicarage called the Hanger, and he writes: “Now the leaf is down, the Bostall discovers itself in a faint, delicate line running up the Hanger.”

Eastry.—Lambarde thought this village was so named to distinguish it from West-Rye, now called simply Rye, but the places are too far apart, especially when the great forest of Anderida came between them. McClure, our most recent authority on British place-names, would refer it to the Rugii, a Continental clan from the Island of Rugen in the Baltic, whom he finds represented in Sûthryge (Surrey). So he would make the word East-ryge, and in a charter of 780 it is Eastrygena, and in another Eastryge. But amongst the various early spellings is Eastereye, _i.e._, Eástoregg (No, not Easter Egg!), the island of Eástor. In a will of 929, “Æthelnoth, the reeve to Eastorege,” is mentioned. Now the next parish is Woodnesborough, the town of Woden, the Saxon god. So here may well be, named at the same time and by the same people, the name of Eástor, the goddess of spring; while, as to its suffix, the centre of the village stands higher than the rest, and is almost entirely surrounded by a valley, though not now by water. Fewer greater authorities than Professor Skeat are to be found, and he inclines to this interpretation.

Folkestone.—Here we find several interpretations, the more modern being the most absurd. Thus Phillipott suggests the town full of folk! and Murray’s Handbook to Kent Fulke’s Town (whoever this Fulke may have been)! Both, however, forgot that the final syllable is always stane or stone, and not ton. Another imaginative worthy says that its stone quarries were much used in the 13th and 14th centuries, and belonged to the community, and so it was the Folks’ Stone! Folcland we know; Folcmote we know; but what is this? The _Anglo Saxon Chronicle_ says that Harold seized ships at Folcesstane, and in Domesday it appears as Falchestan. Harris simply Latinizes the name and calls it Lapis populi, the stone of the people, and as in Ninnius (8th cent.) there is a reference in his description of England to the “stone of inscription on the Gallic sea,” which some would identify with Folkestone; he may be more right than he knew.

Plaxtol, near Sevenoaks.—In many Kentish parishes (and elsewhere) the name Pleystole or Playstool clings to a piece of land on which miracle and other plays were acted when amusements had to be mainly home-grown. So at Lynsted, Herbert Finch, in the sixth year of Queen Elizabeth, bequeathed the “Playstall et Playstollcroft” fields. A variant of the name we may find in Plaistow, by Bromley. So in Selborne (Gilbert White’s renowned village) the Plestor is the old playground. Would that in all villages, especially since the looting of old commons, there might be a field thus consecrated to healthy recreation.

Amongst the sources of enlightenment as to the meaning of our place-names I have turned to the volume of the English Dialect Society, which is on the _Kentish Dialect and Provincialisms_, and was prepared by the Revs. W. D. Parish and W. F. Shaw. It does not contain, as I have found, nearly all our local words, and not a few of the words it does give are by any means peculiar to Kent. Still, it is useful and interesting, and it may well be that some of our Kent place-names are almost peculiar to Kent, especially as the neighbouring counties of Sussex and Essex were populated by Saxons, but Kent was populated by the Jutes, and no doubt their common tongue had its tribal variations. I take from this dictionary all the words which are illustrative of place-names.

Forstall = “a farm-yard before a house; a paddock near a farm house; or the farm buildings.... As a local name, Forestalls seem to have abounded in Kent.” Two instances are given; but I have noted Broken Forestall, Buckley; Clare’s Forestall, Throwley; Mersham Forstall; Forstall Farm, Egerton; The Forstall, Hunton; Preston Forstall, Wingham; Painter’s Forestall, Ospringe; Hunter’s Forstall, Herne; Fostal, Herne Hill; Forstall, Lenham; Forstall, Aylesford; Shepherd’s Forstall, Sheldwich—and no doubt there are more.

Tye.—“An extensive common pasture, such as Waldershare Tie and Old Wives’ Lees Tie, and in a document of 1510, a croft called Wolves’ Tie.” I would add the places called Olantigh, one near Wye and another near Fordwich. Teig-r is really a Norse word meaning a piece of grassland, and when borrowed or used by the Saxons it became Tigar, Tig and Tey in such place-names as Mark’s Tey.

Yokelet.—“An old name in Kent for a little farm or manor.” Cake’s Yoke is the name of a farm in Crundale. The yoke was a measure of land, probably such as one yoke of oxen could plough. Thus it corresponds to the Latin jugum, which means a yoke, and also a land measure. We have also West Yoke in Ash-next-Ridley; Yoklet, a borough in Waltham; land so named in Saltwood; and Ickham was of old Yeckham or Ioccham, from the A.S. yeok, a yoke of arable land. Iocclet is also given in the dictionary as a Kenticism for a small farm.

Bodge.—“A measure of corn, about a bushel.” May this suggest a derivation for Bodgebury, some land with a cottage thereon, part of the old glebe of Detling?

Brent.—“The Middle-English word Brent most commonly meant burnt; but there was another Brent, an adjective which signified steep.” Thus Brentwood in Essex is the same as Burnt Wood in Detling, but the Brents or North Preston near Faversham, and the Brent Gate therein refer to the steep contour of the land. A Celtic root, found in Welsh as bryn, a ridge, accounts for many such names as Brendon Hill, Birwood Forest, Brandon, a ridge in Essex, Breandown near Weston-super-Mare, and many Swiss and German names for steep places.

Court, or Court Lodge.—“The manor house, where the court leet of the manor is held.” So in Detling we have East Court and West Court because, in default of a son, the old manor was divided between two co-heiresses in the 16th century. So we have as place-names North Court in Eastling, a Court at Street in Lympne, besides very many names of old houses, such as Eastry Court, Selling Court, etc.

Down.—“A piece of high open ground, not peculiar to Kent, but perhaps more used here than elsewhere. Thus we have Updown in Eastry, Hartsdown and Northdown in Thanet, Leysdown in Sheppey, and Barham Downs.” I may add Puttock’s Down (the Kite’s Down), three villages called Kingsdown, Derry Downs, Downe, Hackemdown, Harble Down, Housedown, Kilndown, two Underdowns, besides probably some of the names ending in don. The Celtic dun, a hill-fortress, found all over Europe, is directly found in our Croydon, as in London, Dunstable, etc., and the Saxon extended its use, especially in the plural, to high ground, whether crowned with a fort or camp or not. Trevisa wrote in 1398 “A downe is a lytel swellynge or aresynge (arising) of erthe passynge the playne ground ... and not retchyng to hyghnesse of an hylle.”

Fright or Frith.—“A thin, scrubby wood.” So the Fright Woods near Bedgebury. And I learned to skate as a boy at the Fright Farm on Dover Castle Hill. This may account for Frith by Newnham, and possibly also for Frittenden.

Polder.—“A marsh: a piece of boggy soil.” A place in Eastry now called Felder land was of old Polder land, and nearer Sandwich is a place still called Polders. Poll (Celtic), Pool (Early English), Proll (Welsh), is a common prefix to the name of a brook. Polhill, however, in Harrietsham, is more likely to come from the great Kent family of the Polhills. So we have Polhill Farm in Detling, and a Polhill was Vicar in 1779.

Rough.—“A small wood; any rough, woody place.” So Bushy Rough in the Alkham Valley, where rises one of the sources of the river Dour. Hence also Rough Hills in Hernhill; Rough Common near Canterbury; and perhaps Roughway in Plaxtol, the wood being used in the Kentish rather than the usual sense.

Saltings, or Salterns, or Salts.—“Salt marshes on the sea-side of the sea-walls.” A North Kent word, naming Saltbox, and Salterns, both in Sheppey, and probably Seasalter near Whitstable. We must find, however, if we can, another derivation for Saltwood Castle.

Selynge.—Toll, custom, tribute. The Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, used to take in the Stoure a certain custom, which was called Selynge, of every little boat which came to an anchor before the mouth of the said Flete. The compilers of the Dictionary say: “The parish of Sellindge, near Hythe, probably takes its name from some such ancient payment.” Is it possible that the old name of Sentlynge, given to S. Mary’s Cray in Domesday Book, may point to another place of tolling craft on the Cray?

The Northmen in Kent.

A _Furore Normanorum_ was a petition in an old litany in England before it had gained that name. And with reason, for the success of Angles, Jutes and Saxons in the conquest of England drew the attention of Scandinavian and other Vikings, who found that booty could be gained by rapid raids. It was at the end of the eighth century that the Danes (as they came to be called, although the wider “Northmen” would be a better term), reached the land of the Angles, coming from Norway to Dorset, and generally harrying the eastern and southern coasts for a couple of hundred years. They also remained and settled, mainly to the north of the Humber, until at last the greater part of England came under their power, and in 1016 Cnut became the Danish King of England.

Our forefathers in Kent should have our sympathy for the continuous state of alarm in which they were kept. In 832 Scandinavian pirates ravaged Sheppey. In 838 they won a battle in Merscware (_i.e._, the land of the Marsh-folk, _i.e._, Romney Marsh), and slew many in Canterbury. In 851 nine of their piratical ships were taken in battle at Londovic (Sandwich) by Æthelstan, the under-king of Kent; but they remained to winter in Thanet for the first time, and in the same year 350 of their ships entered the Thames and took both Cantwaraburg and Lundenburg (London). In 853 the men of Kent, under the Alderman Ealchere, with the men of Surrey, fought in Tenet (Thanet), but were worsted. Next year they wintered in Sceap-ige (Sheppey). In 865 the men of Kent tried to buy off the heathen invaders, who, however, ravaged all East Kent.

Then arose the great man, Alfred, who in 871 had eight battles with the Danes south of the Thames. In 885 they besieged Hrofceastre (Rochester), but King Alfred relieved it, and the Danes took to their ships, having lost all their horses. In 893 two hundred and fifty Danish ships came to Limenemouth (Lympne), took their fleet four miles up the river, and made a strong fort at Apuldore, while Hasting with 80 ships entered the Thames estuary, made a fort at Milton, and later one at Sceobyrig (Shoebury). In 969 Eadger orders Tenet land to be pillaged, and in 980 Thanet is overrun by the Danes. In 986 the bishopric of Hrofceastre was devastated. In 993 a fleet of nearly four hundred ships came to “Stone,” which may be the one in the Isle of Oxney, or another near Faversham on the Watling Street, or another on the Swale, and went on to Sandwic, which was their chief southern haven, and embodies in its name the Scandinavian wic or bay (Sandwic is a common place-name in Iceland and Norway).

In 994 Anlaf, King of Norway, and Sweyn, King of Denmark, with a fleet of nearly 500, failed to take London, but ravaged Kent and other counties. In 998 they sailed up the Medway estuary to Rochester, and there beat the Kentish army. In 1005 a fleet came to Sandwic and despoiled the country.

In 1007 England despaired, and paid a tribute of £36,000, while Thurkell’s army came to Sandwich and thence to Canterbury, where the people of East Kent bought peace at the cost of £3,000, while the Danes spent the winter in repairing their ships. In 1012 they took Canterbury and martyred the Archbishop Ælfheah, better known to us as S. Alphege. In 1013 Sweyn came again to Sandwich; but in 1014 Eadmund (Edmund Etheling) attacked the Danes in Kent, drove them into Sheppey, and met their leader in battle at Æglesforda (Avlesford). But in 1016 Cnut (Canute) became King of all England, and to him in 1018 £72,000 was paid in tribute.

In 1203 the body of S. Alphege was allowed by Cnut to be taken to Canterbury, and England remained a Danish province. In 1040 Harda-Cnut was brought from Bruges to succeed Harold as King, and landed at Sandwich. In 1046 Thanet was ravaged again by the Northmen; but in 1049 King Edward gathered a great fleet at Sandwich against Sweyn, and later this fleet lay at Dærentamutha (_i.e._, Darentmouth, _i.e._ Dartford). In 1051 King Edward’s brother-in-law, Eustace, lost some followers in a fracas at Dofra (Dover).

But a great change was imminent, and England was to change one domination for another, and in 1052 Wilhelm (afterwards the Conqueror) visited King Edward the Confessor (or Saint) with a great host of Normans, and he exiled Earl Godwin, who came from Bruges to Nœsse (Dungeness) was driven back. Returning with his son Harold to Dungeness, they took all the ships they could find at Rumenea (Romney), Heda (Hythe), and Folcesstane. Thence to Dofra and Sandwich, ending up with ravaging Sheppey and Middeltun (Milton, near Sittingbourne). Then, in 1066, Harold dies in battle at Hastings, and William begins our Norman dynasty, Northmen being succeeded by Normans.

Traces of the visits to Kent are found in various place-names, though more common in other parts of Britain, and indeed in other countries, since as marauders, colonists, or conquerors they were for three centuries the terror of Europe, from Iceland to Italy. The many places with the suffixes byr or by, thorpe, throp, or trop, toft, thwaite, ville in Normandy, or well and will in England, garth, beck, haugh, with, tarn, dale, force, fell, are all almost exclusively northern to Kent and mainly Norwegian. As to “by” for town, there are 600 north of the Thames and east of Watling Street, and hardly any in the south. The one apparent exception in Kent—Horton Kirkby—is no exception, for it was simply Horton until the time of Edward the First, when Roger de Kirkby, _from Lancashire_, married a Kentish heiress and the manor and place were re-named after him.

We have, however, certain records of their piratical visits, as at Deptford and Fordwich, where the termination is not the Anglo-Saxon ford, meaning a passage across a river, but the Norse fiord, a roadstead for ships. Deptford is the deep fiord, where ships could anchor close to the bank, and Fordwich, the smallest “limb” of the Cinque Ports, was once the port of Canterbury on the Stour, and gives us wic, the Norse for station for ships, a small creek or bay. So, in Kent, we have also from the same source Wick in Romney Marsh, Greenwich, Woolwich, and Sandwich. Inland, however, Wich or Wick, is an Anglo-Saxon borrowing from the Latin vicus, and means houses or a village.

Another Norse word in Kent is Ness or Naze, a nose or promontory, such as Dungeness, Shoeburyness, Pepperness, Foulness, Shellness, Sheerness, Sharpness Cliff at Dover, whence criminals were hurled, Whiteness, Foreness, Bartlett Ness and Oakham Ness. The Nore, in Kent, is the Norse, or perhaps Jutish, Nôr, a bay with a narrow entrance, and the word is unique in Britain, unless we may find it also in Normarsh, near Rainham. Again attributable to our invaders, and again purely coastal, are the places ending in _fliot_, a small river or creek, such as Northfleet, Southfleet, Ebbsfleet, with Purfleet on the opposite bank of the Thames. Thanet and Sheppey were for us their chief points of attack and their naval stations, while the Danelagh or Kingdom whence the Norse element predominated had the Wash as the chief entrance whence they radiated out.

The suffix “gate” may be either from the Saxon geat or the Scandinavian gata, but when we find Ramsgate, Dargate, Margate, Westgate, Kingsgate, Snargate, and Sandgate, all on the coast, while in Romney Marsh “gut” takes the place of “gate,” as in Jervis Kut, Clobesden Gut, and Denge Marsh Gut, we may incline to a Scandinavian origin.

It is in the north, and the north only according to the best authorities, that the suffix ing represents the Norse _eng_ for grass-land.

The Islands of Kent.

Most islands are attached portions of the nearest mainland, severed in prehistoric times by subsidence of the intervening soil and the action of strong currents. Thus even England is a portion of the Continent, as its fauna and flora proclaim, while Ireland was severed earlier still. Thus also the Isle of Wight is Hampshire. So our Kentish islands, now only two and neither now to be effectually circumnavigated, are practically absorbed in the mainland. “Sheppey, Thanet—what else?” most would say. Yet the early geographer Nennius, writing in the eighth century, has the following quaint passage:—“The first marvel is the Lommon Marsh” (_i.e._, Limen, now Romney), “for in it are 340 islands with men and women living on them. It is girt by 340 rocks, and in every rock is an eagle’s nest, and 340 rivers run into it, and there goes out of it into the sea but one river, which is called the Lemn.” Truly a picturesque account of the numerous spots, where dry land first appeared in the shallow bay, and the countless sluices which intersected them.