Place-Names of Flintshire

Hywel Owen, Ken Lloyd Gruffydd

• Editore: University of Wales Press
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786831125
• Edizione: 1

This is the first thorough, authoritative study of the place-names of the entire pre-1974 Flintshire, scholarly in substance, readable in presentation, with its selection of names based on the OS Landranger 1: 50, 000 map. The entry for each of the 800 names presents a grid reference, documentary and oral evidence with dates, derivation and meaning, and a discussion of the significance of the name in terms of history, language, landscape and industrial associations. Additionally, comparisons are drawn with similar names in other parts of Wales and the UK, and the later linguistic development of names is charted in light of the particular influences of a bilingual society.

PLACE-NAMES OF FLINTSHIRE

OVER MANY YEARS, Ken Lloyd Gruffydd and I, independently and collaboratively, gathered vast amounts of material pertaining to place-names in Flintshire. Many are names we have written about in the past, with varying degrees of detail, and with different readers in mind. Some are responses in radio programmes or in local papers; many result from private correspondence. Cymdeithas Enwau Lleoedd Cymru/Welsh Place-Name Society has prompted a new wave of interest throughout Wales, revealing untapped local knowledge about less familiar names such as those of farms and fields.

This volume brings together much of what we have published or said in the past in individual notes on particular names, together with the publications of other scholars. However, the vast majority of Flintshire names have not been discussed anywhere by anyone. In any case, even for place-names already dealt with elsewhere, this volume represents fresh material, building, inevitably, on newly deposited documents, recent developments in toponomy and in particular our current knowledge of the significance of certain elements.

We must also draw attention to the contribution of Ellis Davies in his Flintshire Place-Names (University of Wales Press, 1959), a volume that is particularly valuable because of his knowledge of the county and his comments on buildings and people that illuminated what might otherwise have been lost by the time we came to write. Derrick Pratt, too, wrote at length and in great detail about Maelor and shared his knowledge of local and documentary history. Flintshire has a number of lively local history societies whose transactions regularly feature articles on place-names, particularly the Flintshire Historical Society Journal, Clwyd Historian, Ystrad Alun and Buckley.

SELECTION OF NAMES

This volume deals with 753 places. There are 48 places with dual names making a total of 801 actual names. We have based the selection on the names appearing on the OS Landranger maps (revised 2000) with frequent reference to the OS Explorer maps. We also added an occasional traditional or literary name that is part of Flintshire’s heritage but does not appear on the Landranger maps. On the other hand, where we discovered the name seemed to be very recent and we could not provide documentary evidence of earlier usage, we tended to omit that name. Inevitably, there will be readers who will search in vain for a particular name. We encourage them to visit Ken Lloyd Gruffydd’s digital database which may well provide at least historical evidence for those additional names.

PRESENTATION

Each paragraph comprises the place-name as a headword (or headwords where there are dual names), the national grid reference (NGR), the meaning of the place-name, the elements that make up the component parts of the name (assumed to be Welsh unless otherwise indicated), the historical evidence (with dates and sources), and a discussion of the significance of the name (including phonological, historical, orthographic or topographic interpretation). The length of each paragraph varies in accordance with the amount of documentary evidence necessary and on the detail and complexity of the discussion. The style of discussion is scholarly, readable narrative. The volume is aimed at both specialist and general reader.

Standardization of the orthography of Welsh place-names is a work in progress. Standard forms are by and large based on Elwyn Davies’s A Gazetteer of Welsh Place-Names (University of Wales Press, 1957, 1967). Some maps, and occasional local usage, have preserved forms that have since been standardized in accordance with guidelines of a panel of experts under the aegis of the (former) Welsh Language Board and now the Welsh Language Commissioner. The model followed here is that settlement names (villages etc.) and landscape features have been standardized in accordance with those guidelines but non-standard spellings have been respected for house and farm names.

THE EVIDENCE OF PLACE-NAMES IN FLINTSHIRE

The purpose of this section is to see what Flintshire’s place-names tell us about its landscape, history and language by highlighting significant features and themes, citing a few examples of place-names that illustrate each feature. Reference to the text proper will provide the evidence. What we do not do is present a detailed survey of linguistic, historical, geological or industrial profile of Flintshire. Such a task would have been appropriate after completion of an exhaustive three-volume survey of Flintshire’s place-names as originally envisaged when The Place-Names of East Flintshire was written. Since the other two detailed volumes were never attempted this selective volume will, for the foreseeable future, provide the best overview of the characteristics of Flintshire place-names.

PRE-HISTORY

River names in particular can be Celtic, Brittonic (Brythonic) or Old Welsh. This is because major rivers have always been prominent features of the landscape, marking boundaries and providing transport links. Because of their permanence names of rivers can be ancient, frequently the oldest names in a region.

Alun, Clwyd, Dee, Elwy

RIVER SETTLEMENTS

Rivers have long given their names to settlements established on their banks. Occasionally, the nature of the terrain is determined by flooding and marshland associated with brooks and rivers.

Broughton, Bryn Carrog, Gronant, Hesb Alun, Nannerch, Nercwys, Llong, Roe, Stimmy

TUMULI, HILL FORTS AND LOWLAND DEFENCES

The landscape of Flintshire has several prominent sites that over the centuries have been fortified in some way or were the locations of tumuli.

Basingwerk, Brynllystyn, Gorsedd, Gwesbyr, Hawarden, Penycloddiau, Mold, Worthenbury

ECCLESIASTICAL AND OTHER RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS

Ecclesiastical establishments, churches, chapels and biblical references feature commonly in place-names.

Babell, Babylon, Carmel, Dyserth, Llaneurgain, Prestatyn, Sodom, Spital, Tre-lan

MIGRATION

The north-east coast of Wales (as with the west coast and south Wales) ...