Alex Mills

ALEX MILLS

Where do you live? Why is it called that? Placenames are so familiar that we frequently give them no more than passing thought. But what we choose to name places important to us – our landscapes, our settlements, our homes – tells us stories about our environments and about ourselves. They reflect the world; they reflect us. We might even suggest that names make a place a place. The town or hill or wood would, of course, exist without a name that humans have decided upon. But it would not be somewhere we could communicate about. Across cultures, space and time, humans have named places after features of the natural world. This offers opportunities to investigate both what past landscapes were like and the form that our relationship with the world around us has taken.

Here I will take a look at plants in the placenames of Dorset. Dorset is a county famed for some outstanding place-names, often inducing giggles from those with frivolous, childish minds (me): Piddletrenthide, Scratchy Bottom, Shitterton, etc.

Above: Acer campestre (Field Maple) which can be traced in at least four Dorset place-names. Photographs by the author.

Iwill explore which plants crop up before considering why these names might have been chosen and what they can tell us about the county’s flora.1

I have used Dorset Place-Names: Their Origins and Meanings (Mills, 1986)2 as the source material, with some additions from The Landscape of Place-names (Gelling & Cole, 2014). I collated the names, dates of first record, locations and meanings for places which contained elements from the botanical world and explored the data. Where multiple places are named in relation to each other (such as East Holme and West Holme) or from the same topographical

1 The survey covers the county of Dorset, encompassing v.c.9 (Dorset) and parts of v.c.11(South Hampshire). 2 No relation (as far as I’m aware).

feature (such as Iwerne Minster, Iwerne Courtney, etc., all named after the River Iwerne) they have been counted as only one occurrence.

A total of 135 names with elements potentially derived from plants was found (Figure 1). Depending upon interpretation about 41 taxa can be inferred from the names (Table 1)3. The vast majority of the names are Old English in origin (c.700–1200 CE), as is the case across England (Gelling & Cole, 2014). A few have their roots in Celtic languages predating this period. Deciding what plant is referred to is not always simple. This is partly owing to uncertainties over past plant names. Investigating plants in medieval manuscripts Hunt (1989) found over 1800 names used for what was judged to be 600 species.

3 Some of these assignations are debatable, as Mills makes clear in his book. Often there can be no hope of resolving the plant’s identity without further information emerging. This is the case for Bothenwood, where the first element is judged by Mills to be the Old English (OE) word bothen which may refer to Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus), Darnel (Lolium temulentum), or Thyme (Thymus sp.) In some instances it is possible to assign a species to the place-names, such as with Hazelbury Bryan, first recorded as ‘Hasebere’ in 1201 meaning ‘Hazel wood’ and deriving from the OE haesel and bearu. In other cases we can only give a genus or a family. So when an oak is the source (from the OE ac) we cannot be sure to which member of Quercus this refers. Elsewhere we must cast our name-net more widely. For example, the probable candidate when ‘thorn’ (from the OE thorn) is used is a hawthorn (Crataegus sp.), and sometimes the element is clearly from the OE haeg-thorn, such as Haythorn (Heythorne, earliest date 1551). But usually other spiky trees cannot be ruled out, notably Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa).

Table 1. Totals of plant taxa found in Dorset place-names. Plant taxon No. of placenames

Acer campestre (Field Maple) Allium ursinum (Ramsons) 4 2

Alnus glutinosa (Alder) Arctium sp. (burdock) Buxus sempervirens (Box) Corylus avellana (Hazel) Crataegus sp./Prunus spinosa (hawthorn sp./Blackthorn) Cytisus scoparius (Broom) Erica sp./Calluna vulgaris (heaths, Heather)

4 1 1 2 (or 3) 16

4 3

Fabaceae, ?Vicia faba (Broad Bean) 4 Fagus sylvatica (Beech) 2 fern, ?Pteridium aquilinum (Bracken) 6 Fraxinus excelsior (Ash) 14 Hedera helix (Ivy) 1 Hordeum vulgare (Six-rowed Barley) 3 Ilex aquifolium (Holly) 8 Isatis tinctoria (Woad) 2 Juncaceae (rushes) 1 Linum usitatissimum (Flax) 2 Tilia sp. (lime) 1 Malus sp. (apple) 1 Mentha sp. (mint) 2 Plant taxon

No. of placenames Nasturtium officinale (Water-cress) 2 Pinus sylvestris (Scots Pine) 1 Pisum sativum (Garden Pea) 1 Poaceae (including Common Reed, Phragmites australis) 5 Prunus sp. (cherry, plum) 2 Pyrus sp. (pear) 6 Quercus sp. (oak) 11 Rumex sp. (dock) 1 Salix sp. (willow) 3 Salvia rosmarinus (Rosemary) / Lolium temulentum (Darnel) / Thymus sp. (thyme) (see text) 1 Sambucus nigra (Elder) 2 Tanacetum vulgare (Tansy) 1 Taxus baccata (Yew) 4 Teucrium chamaedrys (Wall Germander) 1 Triticum aestivum (Bread Wheat) 4 Ulex sp. (gorse) 2 Ulmus sp. (elm) 1 Ulmus glabra (Wych Elm) 1 Urtica dioica (Common Nettle) 1 Total taxa: 41 Total place-

names: 135

Figure 1. Map showing plant toponym distribution in Dorset. Further, the species of fern is not made clear in the five names, such as Farnham in north Dorset (first recorded 1086), which derive from OE fearn. Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), a prominent feature of Dorset’s heaths (attested to by Thomas Hardy’s Egdon), is most likely having often simply been called ‘fern’ in the past. Take, for instance, Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal entry (11 October 1800): ‘The colours of the mountains soft, and rich with orange fern’. Sometimes I have inferred from names such as Hethfelton the presence of Erica species and Calluna vulgaris. The distinction between cases where a taxon is referred to explicitly (e.g. Hazelbury Bryan) and more conjectural deductions (e.g. Hethfelton) should be kept in mind.

What do these names tell us about Dorset’s flora, land and people? Certain important plants or groups of plants emerge: trees, crops and food plants; medicinal plants; and general landscape or habitat descriptors. Some intriguing outliers are also found. All selected plants were useful, either materially or by providing a sense of place.

most commonly referred to is the unspecific ‘thorn’ found in 16 names, making it the most frequent plant of any sort. Indeed, second position (Ash – 14), third (oaks – 11), and fourth (Holly – 8) also go to trees/shrubs. It is only in fifth spot that plants of the nontree/shrub flavour get a look-in: a three-way tie between bean (probably Broad Bean Vicia faba), fern (probably P. aquilinum), and, not wanting that fifth spot to be totally tree free, pear (Pyrus sp.). Why are trees so prevalent? The immediate answer ‘because they’re big’ is probably correct, at least in part. Trees are noticeable and notable. They are also long-lived, providing a consistent place-marker. Trees could form a focal point for communities, such as meeting places for hundreds, the administrative unit for local governance in the early medieval period (Baker & Brookes, 2015). You say to a group ‘Meet me at the great, old Germander Speedwell’ and you should be prepared to be lonely. Tell them to see you ‘at the great, old oak’ and you may have company.

The longevity of trees and place-names is also demonstrated by the collection of ‘Iwernes’. These are supposed to derive from the Celtic name for the river (Iwerne), thought to mean ‘Yew river’. If you wanted a species that could provide a constant marker through time, the long-lived Yew is a good bet.

Trees and shrubs were also useful. Incredibly so. They provided fuel (e.g. Hazel and Gorse4), building materials (e.g. oaks), food and drink for humans and livestock (e.g. the orchard trees apples, pears, and plums, as well as species such Holly and Ash for animal fodder or ’tree-hay’ [see Peterken, 2017]), and medicine (e.g. Elder). These factors will

Trees Of the c.41 taxa inferred 20 are trees/shrubs, finding spots in 77 names (57% of the total). The

4 The two names – Furzehill and Furzey Island – derived from OE fyrs meaning furze/gorse seem particularly relevant to Dorset, calling to mind the furze-cutters of

Hardy’s Egdon.

Figure 2. Tree/shrub toponym distribution.

There is a dearth of tree toponyms on the Isle of Purbeck (Figure 2). This may reflect its open landscapes, with calcareous grassland and heathland dominating. However, these habitats are not totally treeless and trees which do get a foothold in such spots may be more distinctive and more likely to be useful placemarkers than a tree in a wellwooded area. Further, Purbeck is not and was not without woodland or woodland-related names, even if particular species are not assignable. Common elements such as hyrst, bearu, or leah all reference woodland. Bushey (Burshawe in 1299) comes from the OE bur (cottage) and sceaga (small wood or copse). And when names broadly indicating woodland are mapped alongside tree/shrub toponyms this putative relationship between Purbeck and paucity of trees disappears (Figure 3).

Crops, food, and drink Seven of the 41 taxa are crops. Others may be placed into a broader group of cultivated plants or other plants important for food and drink, although with Figure 3. Tree/shrub and woodland toponym distribution. less certainty and dependent on interpretation of the potential be discussed further below. Cradle to coffin, trees uses of a species. For example, Hazel may at gave much of what life required. different times have been planted, favoured through

Furthermore, as historians such as Hooke (2010) management, coppiced, or harvested for its nuts. have explored, trees played central roles in people’s Four names contain an element referring to cultural and spiritual lives. From the sacred cedars Wheat (Triticum aestivum), drawn from the OE hwaete. of Gilgamesh and Yggdrasill to ‘faery-thorns’ and This dietary staple is unsurprisingly prevalent, churchyard Yews, folklore and religious beliefs have its ubiquity perhaps combatting the lack of frequently centred upon trees. And, as a modern-day distinctiveness of naming places after this crop. How example of this, think of the enthusiastic revivals do you tell one Wheat-filled combe from another? of Wassail ceremonies. Our lived experiences Additional familiar crops include Pea (Pisum sativum) intertwine with trees. and Barley (Hordeum vulgare) (Table 1).

Table 2. Some examples of Dorset place-names derived from plant names. Plant Flax

Flax

Lime Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Woad Woad Place-name Limbury Farm Linton Hill Lymburgh’s Farm Watcombe Bottom Whatley Farm Whatcombe Earliest form Earliest date Limbury Lyndone Linberg Whetecombe 1288 1332 1244 891

Hwatelegh Watecumbe 1250 1288

Whatcombe Down

Whatecome Waddon, Friar Waddon, Little Waddon Wadone Waddon Hill Waddon 1340 1086 1461

Less well-known and non-food crops are also present. Take, for instance, Woad (Isatis tinctoria), OE wad (Table 2). This was a dye plant for fabrics and, indeed, humans. In Gallico Commentarii de Bello Gallico (58–49 BCE), we find Caesar writing of the Woad-daubed British warriors.5 Other dye plants found include Alder, Blackthorn, Ivy and Gorse.

Additionally, Cultivated Flax Linum usitatissimum is present in two names (from lin the OE for Flax), with a third possible dependent upon interpretation (Table 2). Mills (1986) offers the OE lin or lind (the linden or lime Tilia sp.) for Lymburgh’s Farm, originally ‘Linberg’. Whilst seeds of this plant recently have seen increased popularity as a health food, its primary use in the medieval period was to provide fibre for fabrics. Flax has been an important crop in Dorset, especially in the west (Beaminster Museum, 2015) (Table 2).

And we can, more playfully, consider the clothing use of Burdock, taking Chaucer’s ‘The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue’ in The Canterbury Tales as our source: ‘A clote-leef he hadde under his hood / For swoot, and for to keep his heed from heete’ (ll. 23–25).6 The burdock leaf (‘clote-leef’) forms a nifty bit of headwear for keeping cool. Perhaps Clatcombe Farm (earliest record 1614) was the place to go for herbaceous hats?

In addition to the crops, foods which could potentially be gathered from the wild for consumption are prevalent – for example, nettles,

5 And see evidence in that highly-accurate docu-drama

Braveheart. 6 https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/canons-yeomansprologue-and-tale Wild Garlic (Ramsons), and burdock. Foraged and famine foods would, at times, have been crucial.

Medicine Foods bleed into medicines. Although there is no evidence for the quotation often attributed to Hippocrates ‘Let food be thy medicine’ it seems that such a principle was followed in early medieval societies (Witkamp & van Norren, 2018). Indeed, it can sometimes seem that any plant you care to mention was put to some healing use. Thirty-nine of the 41 taxa considered here have had medicinal uses.

The oldest known Old English medical texts are from the 800s CE, with the Lacnunga and Leechbooks most prominent. They make for compelling reading. In the Leechbooks we find cures such as ‘A drink for swelling: work wild celery, betony, rue, sedge, garden radish, greater burdock and marshmallow in ale’ (I.39.28). A fairly reasonable recipe. The treatment directly after this, however, is more striking for the modern reader: ‘Again for swelling, at the beginning take a hazel or elder stick, write your name on it, cut three scarifications [on the patient], fill the name with the blood, throw [the stick] over the shoulder or between the thighs into running water and stand over the man, strike the scarifications and do all of that silently’ (I.39.29). Quite apart from anything else I wonder how on earth this could be done silently?

Although it can be fun to focus on past medicine’s more outlandish elements there is growing evidence behind the efficacy of certain plant medicines. Until the last one hundred years or so, humans were almost utterly reliant upon plants for medicine. Even today c.75% of medicines are derived from, or were

originally, plants. The well-known example of willow bark and aspirin is far from the only case. Take, for instance, research into the anti-inflammatory properties of Rosemary (Borges et al., 2019). There is interest in what past practices may teach us today (Watkins et al., 2011).

Amongst the frequent names and species there are a few intriguing outliers.

Kingcombe Perhaps the most puzzling name is Kingcombe. This, initally, appears straightforward and not related to plants: the combe of the King. However, unlike places such as Kingston (in Corfe Castle), royalty seems not to feature in Kingcombe. Looking at the first known rendering – ‘Chimedecome’ in the Domesday Book (1086) – led Mills (1986) to posit OE cymed as the qualifying element. This name for Wall Germander (Teucrium chamaedrys) appears in the aforementioned Leechbook.

Wall Germander was used medicinally and would likely have been cultivated in gardens, especially monasteries. But, as Voigts (1971) laments, details about early medieval monastic gardens in England are much poorer than from other European countries and, as far as I am aware, there was no monastery in Kingcombe’s vicinity. It may have grown in another, non-monastic garden. But there is also the tantalising possibility that the cymed grew in the wild.

A view of Kingcombe

There is currently just one site in Britain at which T. chamaedrys is believed to be native: Cuckmere Haven, East Sussex (Rumsey, 2018). These plants can be distinguished from naturalised specimens by the characteristics of their hairs. Records from elsewhere are thought to be garden escapes. The first record of T. chamaedrys growing in the wild is from Winchelsea Castle’s walls in Sussex by J. Sherard. We don’t know the exact year for this but Sherard died in 1738 (Pearman, 2017). The early date for Kingcombe’s name, and the fact that this plant was chosen as being such an important feature of the place that it become known by it, offers the provocative, if faint, possibility of T. chamaedrys growing wild and native in a west Dorset combe. The BSBI database holds a handful of records for T. chamaedrys in v.c.9, none thought to be native.

It may well not be possible to resolve Kingcombe’s etymology. Even if Wall Germander was found and that Wall Germander had hairs which suggest the plants were native, doubt would remain. Decisions around plant species’ and populations’ native statuses are always about balancing evidence, making informed judgements. And place-name etymology frequently is fraught. The word cymed has also been translated as Caraway (Carum carvi) in some Old English texts. So, even though Mills (1986) settled upon T. chamaedrys for Kingcombe, we cannot even be confident in that C. carvi, a Critically Endangered archaeophyte, would, however, be a similarly intriguing alternative. But let us not get carried away with too many interesting plants in too short a space.

Rampisham Wild Garlic or Ramsons (Allium ursinum) was not a plant I expected to come across in place-names, perhaps foolishly. It is after all a distinctive plant, its pungent aroma and dense colonies defining characters of many woodlands in spring. There are two potential names from the OE hramsa: Rampisham (first recorded 1086) and Rempstone Hall (first recorded 1280). Another option discussed would be OE ramm meaning a ram. A. ursinum grows in the two places today, with recent records

from Rampisham Meadows, Rampisham Wood and Rempstone Woods. These place-names may push back our knowledge of these colonies many hundreds of years.

Bexington First appearing in Domesday (1086), Bexington appears to mean ‘farm where the Box (Buxus sempervirens) grows’, from the OE byxen/bixen, an adjective found in tenth century glossary attributed to Aelfric.7 Box place-names are a bit of a conundrum. The most famous is Box Hill in Surrey, one of the very few sites where Box is considered to be native. Its long history of cultivation – since at least the Roman period – somewhat blurs matters. The Bexingtons (East and West) do not match the character of the native sites, although unlike some other places Coates (1999) discusses, are calcareous. There is, to my knowledge, no Box growing at the Bexingtons or records suggesting former prominence. The presence of Roman activity in the area makes former cultivation a possibility. We cannot be certain – again, that is part of the fun.

Pinsford Pinsford is posited as containing the OE pin, meaning pine. However, the early date of its first record (1160) precludes it being a plantation and native, wild Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris is thought to have disappeared from Dorset long before. It is perhaps sensible to go with the alternative suggestions that it may be from the OE pinn (pin or peg) or from a personal name (Pinna). Still it is diverting to consider the slim possibility that this species survived as an overlooked native, as has recently been argued to be the case in parts of Ireland (Roche et al., 2018).

Many place-names describe landscape or habitat characteristics. They fit the broad ‘topographical’ category of place-names, the most abundant of the four types of element found in Cox’s place-name survey (1976). Aligned to this are instances where

7 Facilitating the wonderful phrase ‘bixen box’, meaning

‘a box made from box wood’. particular plants may be chosen because they are a defining feature of the land. Examples of this include Darknoll Farm (from OE docce meaning dock), the frequent fern names and Rushmore (from OE rysc meaning rush).

However, most topographical names suggest too broad a sweep of species to have been included here. ‘Heath’ is one that I judged to allow us to fairly positively infer Heather or Erica species, and instances of names derived from OE filethe (hay), gaers (grass), lisc and hreod (both meaning reed) have been grouped under the bracket of Poaceae. We may even be able more confidently to assign P. australis to the reed names, such as Radipole.

There is the possibility of using a suite of habitat/ landscape place-names to build a picture of that habitat/landscape in a region, as seen in Falk (2009) or Rackham (1986) and indicated in Figure 3 which illustrates woodland toponyms in the survey area. More statistically rigorous studies such as Fagundez & Izco (2015) have used place-names to explore habitat and land-use change.

Do these place-names represent biological records? Although a teasing question there is some validity in further consideration. For modern, high-quality biological records the ‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘When’ criteria are desirable. How do place-names stand-up to such inquisitions? ‘What’ can certainly be fulfilled, with differing degrees of accuracy and confidence. In terms of ‘Where’ we might not have GPS but it is possible the places themselves are locations and grid references (to a degree of precision deemed appropriate, e.g. four figures?) can be assigned. ‘When’ is trickier. First recorded uses of names exist but the closeness of these to the first actual use of the name and/or the existence of the plant is less certain. However, not all historical biological records have precise dates and encountering a ‘pre-1845’ or similar is not unknown. ‘Who’ seems insurmountable. Aside from hypothetical instances of a landowner chronicling that they decided to call such a place such a name, how on earth does one decide who might be initially responsible?

With caveats in mind, there is a case for arguing that records such as the following may have legitimacy: Ilex aquifolium; East Holme, Dorset (SY896859); pre-1086.

The plants of Dorset place-names are nearly always common and familiar, those most closely connected with human lives. People ultimately relied on the world around them for … well, everything, as we do today. The networks were more immediate in the past and people’s experience of their flora on a day-to-day basis would have been deep.

This is a cursory glance so far. I am widening the source-scope, consulting, for example, medieval charters. Research suggests place-name studies can contribute to understanding of past distributions of habitats and biodiversity or ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge’ (Jones, 2016). These would be productive areas to explore.

Plants provide not just the background for but the substance of so many of our places and, indeed, so much of our lives. The study of toponyms is one way we may rediscover this connection. We can enter a world of maps and trees, books and leaves, routes and roots.

Thanks to Robin Walls for taking the time to offer some very useful comments on an earlier draft. Remaining errors or eccentricities are my own.

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