The Place-Names of the East Riding of Yorkshire and York

Abstract

This volume covers an administrative area the boundaries of which remained virtually unchanged from Viking times until the late twentieth century. From 1974 until 1997 the East Riding was partitioned between the two non- Metropolitan Counties of North Yorkshire and of Humberside, but the latest reorganization has placed most of the area in East Yorkshire. The City of York has been transferred to North Yorkshire, but some places now within that city but formerly in Ainsty Wapentake are discussed in Part IV of The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The editor notes a particular problem in the study of East Riding places and their names, namely the washing away of villages along the Humber and the North Sea coast, complicated further by the appearance of new stretches of alluvial deposits, exemplified by Ravenser Odd and Sunk Island. The obscure place-name element spen is discussed in an appendix (pp. 330 - 2). An end-pocket contains a county map (showing boundaries of wapentakes and townships) and six distribution maps (locating hill, marshland and woodland place-names and names containing various English and Scandinavian elements).