What's in an English Place-Name? a History of England in Its Place-Names

EVERYONE KNOWS OF THE ARTIFACTS of England's distant past from bones and fossils to jewellery and tools are buried beneath the soil of our country and regularly unearthed by archaeologists. Less appreciated is that there is a quite different historical trail which leads us back through many centuries of our country's history. However, this trail is not buried within the soil, but within our place-names. The earliest sounds of which were uttered by occupants of these islands over 2600 years ago and which have survived into many of the place-names we use today. Place-names have a special significance for a great many people, for their surnames are also names of English places: some will have local feature names such as Brook, Hill, Bridge, Wood and Field and some will have names recalling the village, town or district from which a mediæval ancestor originated. What's in an English Place-Name? offers a fascinating chance to trace the names within our localities back to their roots and to give an absorbing insight into our district's histories. Discussing the origins of hundreds of place-names in England this book provides a comprehensive understanding of how place-names arose.