PLACE NAMES OF EXMOOR
Most Exmoor place names are of Old English origin and record landscape features or routes. The Ansteys were named for a strategic trackway, possibly that from Oldway on the county boundary to Molland and North Molton. It has been suggested that royal horsemen charged with keeping the peace used such ways.[1]
Farmsteads were named after the valley in which they lay or from a hill, hollow, tree, or hanger (a wooded slope). Valleys derive their names from their nature, steep or winding, or from the animals found there. Such names may be English translations of the older British. Many refer to water, revered by Celtic peoples, such as Hawkwell, Dulverton (crooked stream), Wellshead in Exford, or Ludslade, Exford (valley of the torrent). The rivers Exe and Barle have British names meaning water and hill stream respectively. The common suffix ‘combe’, a short steep valley, is used in English and in Welsh as cwm. Smallcombe in Molland was the narrow combe and Liscombe in Dulverton the combe with the pigsty. Woodland is recorded in Allshire in Brushford and Ashott in Exford, both derived from shaw (coppice), and Halsgrove in Withypool. Land appears in many other farm names include acre, ham, hay (enclosed land), hill, land, moor, and marsh.
Names ending in ‘cott’, ‘ley’ (leah, a glade) or ‘worthy’ indicate Anglo-Saxon settlement or places taken over by them. In Molland Bremley was in a bramble glade and Luckworthy was an enclosed farmstead. ‘Worthy’ names are often attached to large farms, some of which gave their names to manors and parishes. Believed to be early Anglo-Saxon farms, they may have utilised late prehistoric intakes. Their prefixes are usually personal names such as Almsworthy and Buckworthy named after Ealhmund and Bucca. Personal names are rare on Exmoor except in the Ansteys. Wine gave his name to Winsford, Badda to Badlake in West Anstey, Hroda to Radnidge (Hroda’s ash) in East Anstey, and Hringa to Ringcombe in West Anstey. ‘Cotts’ were usually smaller and later, possibly marking a period of expansion. The distribution of ‘cotts’ and ‘worthys’ in southern Exmoor shows that they are clustered in the far south and north-east perhaps indicating that the British had long farmed the main valleys. The ‘ley’ names are mainly in Molland, a well-wooded parish, and around Winsford Hill. It has been suggested that ‘wick’ [wic farm or dairy farm] indicates a Romano-British farm. Ashwick in Dulverton lies above the bend in the river Barle defended by the twin hillforts of Brewers and Mounsey castles.
The name Molland is unusual and appears to be of Irish origin, meaning ‘heap land’. The same word moll occurs in North and South Molton. The word may refer to the slag heaps from early iron workings. A large Iron-Age smelting site has been studied at Sherracombe Ford on the northern boundary of North Molton parish a short distance from Exmoor Forest. Four iron workers were recorded at North Molton in 1086 and there were later iron mines in Molland parish. There was an Iron-Age slag heap south of Twitchen and evidence of Roman and medieval smelting has been found near Dulverton.[2]
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Mary SuiratPage 1 Exmoor Reference
[1] Donn’s map of Devon 1765; Atkin, M A, ‘Places Named Anstey’, Journal of English Place Name Society (30, 1997—8), 83, 89—90.
[2] Coates, R, Breeze, A, and Horovitz, D, Celtic Voices, English Places: Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place Names in England (Stamford, 2000), 294; Riley H, and Wilson-North, R, The Field Archaeology of Exmoor (English Heritage, 2001), 80—1.