Staffs Place-Names

Project at @ArchandHeritage to restart the English Place-Name Society survey of Staffordshire. Drop us a DM or visit our blog to find out how to get involved!

[SNSBI @SNSBI_official]

Do keep an eye on the event's page on our website - which will be updated with the latest details and information as the progamme develops. https://t.co/SNzIDFhbmq

[SNSBI @SNSBI_official]

We are very pleased to announce that the SNSBI autumn conference will be held in person at the University of Leicester on 29 October 2022. Online attendance is also available. The theme is ‘Names and local history’. Abstract deadline: 1 October 2022. Please do share.

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

A nice field name from Codsall (1335)
'..de Codessale que vocat le Onemasteruydynge'
Likely to be 'one master + ruydynge'
OE *ryding = clearing, assart
Giving 'the clearing belonging to one master'. Which prompts questions about landholding practices.

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

'Thieves Flatt', possible derogatory term indicating land that is hard work/unprofitable.
Or dialect word = young sheep 'theaves'
or place where thieves were taken/executed.
+ flatt a Scandinavian loanword for level land.
Source: P. Cavill 'Field-names', image wikicommons

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

A possible new spelling for Willenhall, 'Willelmo Wylkys de Wynhalle' (dated 1494) #Staffordshire #placenames

[Becca Gregory @beccagregs]

📢 Job alert for #medievaltwitter!

Temporary part-time (0.8) post in medieval English @UoNEnglish, teaching OE and ME lang and lit, and ON texts in translation.

We're quite a nice bunch, if I do say so myself...

Closing date 8 July 2022, more info at:
https://t.co/Pug4HGNtUg

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

We rather liked this initial 'T' as in 'This Indenture' in what is fairly standard deed for land in Trescott in the parish of Tettenhall (1579).

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

'dieulencres' (1517)
Dieulacres a Cistercian foundation north of Leek founded 1214.
When Ranulph de Blundeville told his wife Clemence of his foundation 'she exclaimed in French "Deux encres" (May God grant it increase)'
@VCH_Staffs via @bho_history
see
https://t.co/4r5eJCpnrS

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

Plan showing Wyrley (18th C)
from
OE wīr ‘bog myrtle’ plus lēah ‘open woodland
#placenames #staffordshire

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

Oldefalling, a 14th century field name in Penkridge. From 'old' plus:
OE fælling ‘felling, clearing’
or
OE fælging ‘piece of ploughed or fallow land’

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

see also @beccagregs on the coincidence of ‘dead-man’ names with names indicating gallows-sites
R. Gregory, ‘Some Nottinghamshire Dead Men’, Nomina 38 (2015), 85-92.
https://t.co/kdu7g3dN0a

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

This place-name caught our eye recently: 'Dead Lads Grave Close', Wolverhampton.
With this sort of naming '‘The common thread in all the interpretations is not just that the Dead Man is dead, but that he ought not to have been dead'
#placenames #Staffordshire #Wolverhampton

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

'It was war, murder, execution or plague that wrongly cut short his life—or else his body turned up under the soil of a field, by the roadside, on the beach, or somewhere else that a body has no place to be'.
see Jeremy Harte, ‘Down among the dead men’
https://t.co/iVqMNG2EIO

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

with Croft

'applied to plots adjoining dwellings and within the open fields used more or less permanently to the small-scale cultivation of particular crops
frequently combined with names of owners or occupiers'
Cavill, New Dictionary of English Field-Names

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

Mulletts Croft (mid C18th), given the dating sadly not named after the 80's hairstyle (*wikicommons)

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

but a nickname 'young or small mule' from Middle English 'Mulet' or 'Molet' as in Mullet the fish. Especially common in Staffs or Worcs.

[SNSBI @SNSBI_official]

Dr Rebecca Gregory (@beccagregs) is quoted in this fascinating article about 'fitting' in to a name and just how much that matters. A touching personal analysis by Camilla Balshaw. https://t.co/HPosTsuypo

[SNSBI @SNSBI_official]

Really pleased at the level of interest in our 2022 spring conference - rightly so, given the good range of talks that are planned ^_^ Tickets are 5GBP or FREE for society members! https://t.co/QzqVlXuOOL

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

'Baldokesgorende' from an Estreats of Court (1488). A locative name from Baldock (Herts), a town founded in the 12th century by the Knights Templar and given the name of Baghdad in its Old French form.
#Staffordshire #placenames

[Staffs Place-Names @StaffsPNProject]

In a feoffment of 1390, Emma de Muchale is said to have held land in Muchall in the parish of Penn. Although present on the 1889 O.S. map the place-name has now all but disappeared surviving only as a road name.