A RECENTLY published collection of minor toponyms in the Nottinghamshire parish of Norwell contains the intriguing field-name Wrestmanhous (1433).1 The second element is ME hous ‘house’, a generic whose range of use in field-names includes outhouses, special purpose buildings such as breweries and dairies, and buildings for storing agricultural equipment or housing animals and poultry.2 The first element would appear to be an occupational compound *wrestman, possibly used as a surname.3 No such term is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, Middle English Dictionary, or English Dialect Dictionary, nor – so far as I have been able to ascertain – in the standard surname dictionaries.4 The purpose of this note is to draw attention to the existence of the term, and to offer a provisional interpretation. The occupational suffix -man has a variety of uses, relating for instance to place of employment (e.g. Halleman, Kechynman), administrative office (e.g. Alderman, Portman), ecclesiastical office (e.g. Capelman, Kirkeman), identity of employer (e.g. Ladyman), tools of a trade (e.g. Boweman, Spereman), musical skill (e.g. Gleuman), animals tended (e.g. Goteman, Schepman), and items of manufacture or sale (e.g. Flourman, Tubman).5 Which if any of these is appropriate here depends on the meaning of wrest. OED records two potentially relevant senses: ‘an implement for tuning certain wire-stringed instruments, as the harp or spinet; a tuning-key’ (s.v., sb.1 sense 5), and ‘a piece of iron (or wood) fastened beneath the mould-board in certain ploughs’ (s.v., sb.2). The first sense, recorded from 1398, would give an occupational term referring to a maker of such implements – probably alongside other less distinctive items.6 The second sense, recorded from 1653, would give a reference to a ploughman or other agricultural worker.7