Britons in West Derby Hundred, Lancashire

Abstract

LANCASHIRE has many Celtic toponyms and almost no Anglo-Saxon archaeology. Maps make the point clear. One of pre-English toponymy will include the names of Cark, Cuerden, Haydock, Mellor, Penketh, Sankey, Treales, Werneth, Wigan, and so on, where the forms are evidently not English. The pattern is repeated by the element eccles (cf. Welsh eglwys ‘church’), with instances at Eccles near Manchester, Eccleston near St Helens, Eccleston near Chorley, Great Eccleston and Little Eccleston on the Wyre near Poulton, and Eccleshill near Darwen.2 These place-names are striking evidence for the early Celtic inhabitants of what is now Lancashire. In mute contrast are maps of Anglo-Saxon settlements and cemeteries for the pre-conversion period. On them, Lancashire is a blank.3 But can one say more on Lancashire’s Celtic toponyms? Very much so, it seems. Some years ago Pamela Russell, formerly of Liverpool University, set out the evidence they give for Britons in West Derby Hundred (one of the five medieval hundreds of southern Lancashire, effectively the coastal area between Mersey and Ribble). Her discoveries of Celtic place-names in the archives are significant, but her linguistic analysis needs revision. What follows thus has three functions: it examines her philological comments on Celtic and other toponyms; sets out implications of a revised account of them; and compares similar material from the rest of south Lancashire. It should thereby show what local place-names can tell historians and others. If it does, it provides an exercise repeatable for many other English hundreds, especially those in northern England. Pamela Russell’s paper comments on fifteen toponyms in West Derby Hundred and one outside it. The places concerned are Maghull, Alt, Broni Damfield, Incer Field, Dwerefield, Haydock, Ince, Walton (three times), Dowlache, Louchangile, Cundlache Bridge, Carketon, Brettargh Holt, and Bretland. They can be arranged in five geographical groups, as follows: