A

*Abbedeleye [in or near Westhide].

Abbeydore.

A house on the bank of the river is (19th century) called Doyer Villa, a local Anglicized form, quite modern. Welsh dwfr, or dwr, 'river, water'. But H. O. (III. 268) says Dour cannot phonetically represent dwfr.

Aberhall or Abbershall (Hentland).

*Acoll [Goodrich].

Aconbury.

'Burh of' ? perhaps 'Acorn' used as a proper name: but there is no person named 'Acorn' in Onom., nor have any examples of the form 'acorn' been found in use before 1440. The O.E. form is aecern, 'fruit of the acre', i.e. unenclosed land. Possibly Acorn is a corruption of Ecebearn or Ecgbeorn, a witness to a Worcester charter, circ. 1055.
Cf. Alconbury (Hunt.) which is ante 1300 Alcmundebir' 'burgh of Alchmund'.
In the earlier entries in Lib. Land. Aconbury hill is Cair rein, 'camp of the lance'.

The Acre (Ewyas Harold; and in Upton Bishop).

There are also Forty Acre Farm (Abbeydore), Forty Acres Farm (Kingsland), and Starve Acre (Kilpeck).

Acton Beauchamp [In the Pipe Roll 1160 there is a puzzling ntry relating to 'Hereford Belcamp'.]

O.E. dc-tun,'enclosure with the oaks'. The name of its territorial lord added to distinguish it from the ten or more other Actons.

Adam's Hill (Hereford).

Adforton (Leintwardine).

From some unrecorded name, possibly an unusual form of Eadweard. The Dom. form must be corrupt.

*Adhekerdeston ['nigh unto Lutley'].

Prob. from Eadgeard, a name found in Onom.

Adley (Brampton Brian).

'Tun of AEthelac'. We have no traces of the process by which -tun was dropped, and the last syllable of the pers. name turned into -ley.
Cf. Ellastone (Derbs.) which is ante 1700 'Adelakestone'.

Adzor (Wellington).

The second element is evidently -ofer, 'border, margin'. The first element probably is a personal name Ada or Adda.
Cf. Hadsor (Worcs.) which is Dom. Hadesore.

Ailey (Kinnersley).

*Akes [in Hund. 'Brocsash', somewhere near Maund].

*Alac [in 'Lene', i.e. Kingsland].

*Alcamestune ['in valle Stradelei'].

Alcox (brook, Wigmore).

*Aldyazdestres [in Tillington or Burghill].

Later on in same document it is 'dicta via de Saldyaz de Strewe'. Both forms are evidently very corrupt.

Allensmore.

Alan de Plokenet, lord of Kilpeck in 1272 (and evidently for some time earlier), reclaimed this portion of Haywood. There is an Allenshill in Kilpeck, which in 1367 was Aleynshulle (Ep. Reg.).

Almeley.

O.E. Elm-lea,'Elm-meadow'.

Almshall (Farm, Holmer; Land, Clehonger).

Property which for many centuries has belonged to the poor inmates of St Ethelbert's Hospital, Hereford. The second element is probably O.E. healh, 'a meadow'. See Appendix under -hall.

*Almundestune ['in valle Stradelie'].

'Tun of Aylmund or Aethelmund'.

Alt Bough (Little Dewchurch).

The first element is W. alit, 'a cliff' the second probably an adj. akin to bwa, 'an arch':- 'arched cliff'.

Alt Wint (Little Dewchurch).

W. alit gwynt, 'windy cliff'.
There is a Winthill in Cradley, but that is probably of Eng. origin.

Alton (Ross and Dilwyn).

'Ealdwine's tun'. 'Ala's tun' or 'Aldwin's tun'.

Altyrynys (Walterstone).

The first element may be W. alit, 'a cliff', as in the word above. The second element is ynys, 'an island'. But ynys is often used (like the English -ey) of a meadow along a river. It is certainly very loosely used in Welsh place-names, in many of which it cannot mean 'an island'.

Amberley (Marden).

Johnston says from O.E. amber, omber, 'a pitcher' - 'meadow of the pitcher'. Others would make the first element a man's name - Skeat thinks Aembriht, an occasional form of Eanbeorht. Or he may be Amber (not in Onom.), or Amalbeorht, or Ambrose. Alexander thinks Amber may be a Celtic word of unknown meaning.
Cf. Amberley (Glos.).
Amberley (Sussex).
Ombersley (Worcs.).
Amber Hill (Lincs.).

Ankerdine Hill (Bromyard).

From O.E. ancra, 'an anchorite, anchoress, nun' - 'the ham of an anchorite'. Later there seems to have been confusion with the common Herefordshire ending -wardine (or perhaps with -dene).
Cf. Anker (Warw. river, with two hermitages and a nunnery),
Ankerwyke (Middlesex) 'anchorite's village'.

Aramstone (King's Caple).

Archenfield.

Prof. Napier says the A.S. Chron. forms can be phonetically connected with Ariconium, though he considers the element -inga as possibly indicative rather of a Saxon derivation. The word appears in more than a dozen different forms in Lib. Land. Of these forms the earliest seems to be Ercincg or Ergyng. The correct Welsh modification of Ariconium would be Ergun. But it is curious that the Deanery of Archenfield does not include Ross or Weston (where Ariconium stood). And why is there still an Urchingfield in Hardwicke, near Hay, thirty-five miles west of Ariconium?

*Argoedlank [Liberty of Wormelow, 1722].

The W. prefix ar- simply intensifies the meaning; the middle element is coed, 'a wood'. W. llange is 'a young man'; but lank may be corrupted from llanerch, 'a glade'. See *Coyed Llanke.

Arkstone (Kingstone).

The tun of Earkyll (=Earcytel).
Cf. (a few miles away) Thruxton (Thurkeleston in 1291).

Arrow (river).

In mediaeval Welsh MSS. the word occurs as Arw, and in an older form Arwy or Arrwy. Johnston thinks it may be from the same root as Welsh aru,'to plough'. It has been connected with O.E. arewe, 'an arrow'.
The Somerset Oare is in 1264 Ar.

Ash (Bridstow) sometimes called Ashe Ingen.

Evidently O.E. aesc, 'an ash tree'. The word is found as an element in many H'shire placenames:- e.g. The Ash (Much Birch), Tump Ash (Dilwyn), Ashwood (Eye), Hope's Ash (Hope Mansell), The Ashley (Wellington), Ashminton (Bromyard), Snogg's Ash (Foy), Crocker's Ash (Ganarew).
For 'Ingen' see Aston Ingham.

Ashminton (Bromyard).

No old forms. Prob. 'tun of Aescmann or Asman.'

Ashperton.

Possibly 'tun of Asbeorht' or 'Asbret'. In Dom. S often represents a full syllable; e.g. Shrops. Easthope is Dom. Stope.

Ashton (Eye).

'Tun of Ala', a recorded man. Liquids like l disappear easily. Then the name becomes assimilated to some well-known word.

Aston.

Prob. 'tun of Aese' (gen. Aesan). By the 15th century the gen. in -es (-is) has become the usual form.

Aston (Kingsland).

The first element is O.E. aesc, 'an ash tree'.

Aston Ingham.

O.E. east tun, 'east town', in relation to Ross, or possibly to Ariconium. The Ingayn family held Aston in the 13th century. Aston Cruze is one mile west, but I have not found any explanation of its name, unless Cruze is cor. from Lat. crux.

Athelstan's Wood (Aconbury).

Attwood (Holmer).

Thomas atte Wode was ordained by Bishop of Hereford in 1335; and John atte Wode in 1345. (The ordination lists contain almost exclusively local names.) The personal names sufficiently explain the placename.
Cf. Nash, Norke.

Aubro (Wellington).

Aulden (Ivington).

Avenbury.

The -ene seems to represent a gen. plur. The word might therefore be Aeffena-byrig, 'burh of the Aeffes'. But this would be most unusual. It is more likely that -ene represents the gen. sing. in -an, making the word 'burh of Aeffe'.

Awnells (Much Marcle).

Aycrop's Moor (Allensmore).

There is mentioned in a Cath. Chart. circ. 1215 'Heicropi Gardinum' (in Allensmore). A little later we have 'Aycropesmore', and in 1291 we find 'apud Aycrop'.

Aylstone Hill (Hereford).

Aegilnoth or Aegil is the sun-archer of Teutonic mythology. But the person who gave his name to Aylstone Hill is more probably a prosaic English settler. The second element is one of the few -stones which genuinely mean 'a stone'.
Cf. Ailscroft (Bosbury).
Elsdon (Lyonshall).
Heliston (see Pontrilas).

Aylton.

The earliest form suggests O.E. 'tun of Aethelwine'. But the scribe of Tax. Eccles. confuses the first element with Aethelmaer, Normanized into Aylmer.

Aymestrey.

Zachrisson says the Aylmond- here represents the Normanizing of the O.E. Aethelmund, the contraction being due to the inability of the Normans to pronounce th.
-treu is the regular Dom. form for O.E. treow,'a tree'.
Cf. Greitreu, now Greytree Hundred. Return to top of page

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