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SAFFRON WALDEN HISTORICAL JOURNAL |
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Article
from Saffron Walden Historical Journal No 3 (2002) Using
field names to reconstruct the past: a
study of Clavering by
Jacqueline Cooper The
study of place names requires a knowledge of ancient languages, which
discourages contribution by the amateur. Not so with field names, for
which the knowledge of local historians can provide vital clues to
interpretation. Using old maps, field name dictionaries, documentary
sources and outdoor observation, it is possible to reconstruct a
surprisingly vivid picture of past landscapes based on the old names of
the fields. The award accompanying a
beautifully-detailed map of Clavering in 1783 lists 917 fields (usually
named) and divisions of fields, cottages and gardens (seldom named), as
well as owners, tenants, usage and acreage, in a similar format to later
tithe maps. Using both this and older medieval names in court rolls and
other documents, otherwise unrecorded history can be uncovered. In language far
richer than ours — because
agriculture was so central —
for what we simply call fields, the old villagers deployed a wide range of
descriptive denominatives: acre, bottom, brook, close, croft, down, end,
fold, green, ground, grove, hern,
hide, hoppett, jack, knoll, land, lawn, ley, mead, moor, park,
pasture, pightle, piece, reading, rood, shot, slade, slipe and yard
are all found in Clavering, and all had their own shades of meaning. The
study begins at the parish boundary, unaltered for centuries, which in
part doubles as the county boundary: a field actually called
‘Hertfordshire’ straddles this ancient Essex/Herts borderland. Besides
another section was a small field named Merytowne in 1625, possibly from
Old English gemære, the most common boundary
term found in field names. Such interpretations are seldom conclusive, but
greatly helped by access to early spellings of 18/19th century
field-names. Fortunately, former Essex archivist Robert Wood has
translated Latin documents relating to medieval farming in Clavering, and
found considerable continuity between the names used in 14th century
estate rolls of accounts (compoti), and those found in 18/19th
century maps. Some names may be even older and could possibly
'be traced back through six or seven centuries to field or furlong
appellations that may have been assigned before the Norman Conquest'
(Field, J. 1993, page xiii). Although
the greatest concentration of settlement occurs along the main road
(B1038) through the village, Clavering also has at least ten ‘greens’
and ‘ends’ some of which come directly from personal names:
immortality has lain on medieval farmers, Stephen Stikeling, Robert
Starlynge, Gilbert de Ros, Thomas Byrde and William Dere who gave their
names respectively to Stickling, Starlings, Roast, Birds and Deers Green,
now grown into small hamlets. Likewise,
an ‘s’ on the end of dozens of field names, as Baileys, Reeds,
Scarletts and Scroggs, suggests a personal origin. Most of these have now
disappeared, but a few live on as house or road names like The Druce and
Skeins Way. Two medieval
manors, Bonitains (Bolyntons, 16th century) and Pounces (William Pucin,
1246) which have long since disappeared, are survived only by field names
on the house sites. Most lost
houses such as Shoebeggars near Starlings Green have not even left a field
name. Others have been rebuilt and changed their names: Place Farm used to
be Geddings, and Gelding Field, after Fulk de Gedding of 1201, survives
near Stickling Green; while fields called Chamberlains (Robert le
Chaumbleng, 1272) are recalled in a present-day house, Chamberlaynes at
Ford End. The
continuity of some names is remarkable: the farmer who today still calls a
field Wickensale is unwittingly preserving the 15th century Wygneshale: although nothing is known of a settlement site here,
this does translate as ‘the hall of Wigayne’, a Saxon personal name.
The locals who call a minor road, Arfney Lane would not realise that in
1326 this ran alongside a field once called Alflathenhey,
said to derive from a Saxon woman’s name, Aelflæd. Field
names can be enormously valuable for studying the open field system of a
parish. Clavering is an area of late enclosure, and in 1783, there were
still at least 20 areas of open field in use, providing a link with a
farming system which came into being as much as 1000 years ago, hence the
names themselves may have considerable antiquity. However, there were some
fields probably never farmed in common, such as woodland assarts and
cottage crofts, and the field name, Severals refers to land held in
severalty, or private ownership. The
best land had probably been enclosed earlier, judging by the damp,
difficult land still in open fields like Blaksade,
OE slæd meaning shallow, damp
valley; Grenemerefeld , meaning
boggy land; and notably Slofeld,
from the word slough. Some were just tiny remnants of once larger
expanses, but the biggest, Leyfield still had 92 acres under strip
cultivation. The prefix ‘In’ as 'In Leyfield' is a sign of open
fields, as are designations like ‘upper’,
‘lower’, ‘nether’, ‘middle’ and ‘further’ and terms like
‘ridge’ and ‘shott’ detectable in Longbridge and Shortlands.
The name Great Cricks, earlier Crekes
Feld, denotes a rick place, where stacks were placed out in the open
fields, for reasons unknown. Pastoral
land could also be farmed in common, examples being Middle Hide Mead,
Homeward Hide etc, once a series of permanent riverside meadows, farmed in
common. Likewise along the stream near Clavering Place is an area called
In Common Mead with internal divisions, which suggest this too was
organised on common field lines. The name, Pinfold Common is a direct
reference to the pinder, who was appointed by the manor court to impound
stray animals who might eat crops. A reference in 1222 to Penfed
gives its former size as
71 acres. Clavering
has few woods now, but two ancient woodlands, Oxbury Wood and Scotts Wood
survive today with similar names on old maps.
Hornefield Wood, Curls Wood and Great Wood are all long gone. Some
field names show where woodland once existed.
The ending ‘hey‘ is
said to denote areas still
well-wooded in 1086 and mostly on the boulder-clay and chalk. The Domesday
Survey of 1086 records woodland enough for 600 swine in Clauelinga,
a reduction from 800 in 1086, which may reflect clearance. Cleared land
with tree stumps was often known in Essex as Stockings or Readings.
Tree species appear in Pear Tree Close, Crabtree Close, Poplar
Close and Sales Mead (sallow), and the picturesque Slauters
herene (1625) means 'sloe trees in a little nook of land', topography
still apparent today. Hay
meadows had various names, such as Great Madge or Mowing Mead. The custom
of marling the land is reflected in Greate
Lampite (1625),
meaning loam-pits, and of digging clay for brick-making in Brick House Ley.
Particular crops are often mentioned, including lentils, clover and hops.
Turnips, the wonder crop of the 18th century, appear (Turnip Field), as
does saffron (Saffron Ground), after which Saffron Walden was of course
renamed – many of the local villages also had fields of this most
desirable of commodities. Barley, important for the local malting
industry, could be found in a field name as early as 1222, Barlileg. The words ‘black’ or
'burnt', as in Black Croft and Burnt Mead suggests burning to clean or
clear the land, but in the case of Burnt House Yard actually commemorates
a fire in what was once the ratcatcher's cottage. Waste land alongside a
road also was called Jackways, and nearby Brokin Field represented
grassland newly ploughed, from breach:
this lives on in Brocking Farm. If something was ‘new’ in
medieval times, then ‘old’ must be earlier still, as Aldeberifeld
(1234), relating perhaps to early settlement. The soil could be
good as Swetlye (1423) or bad,
as Hunger Downs: although such names are now lost, those farming the land
today agree that it is still difficult land to work.
Pernicious weeds like twitch and docks were marked out as Wychecroft
(1423) and Dogyard.
Old springs can be located through field-names, and even an ancient ditch:
the oldest recorded field-name in Clavering, Fulebroc
(1202) translates as ‘dirty stream’, and a ditch remains there today.
A nearby spot within living memory was known as Felbrook Green. Cows,
sheep, carthorses and oxen (Long Oxleys, 1783) all turn up in field names,
and the forgotten farming of winter meat in Dovehouse Close, and Clap Ley
Pasture (clapere =
rabbit-burrows). Earthworks and a pond in a field called The Stow suggest
manorial fish or stew-ponds, but the name also means 'holy place' and may
refer to the adjoining church site. The custom of driving beasts to market
finds echo in Drovers Croft (Dryvers
in 1667), reached via a drift road recorded in the Clavering Enclosure
Award. Millfield
is a common name and sometimes the only clue to a lost mill site, as 14th
century Berdenmelefeld, pictured
on a map of 1625, and still under open field agriculture in 1783. The
manorial right to execute wrongdoers is suggested by 16th century Scuffold
and Gallows Piece, although there is no proof of their use here. Field
names can take us back a thousand years or more: for example, although
sometimes named The Down, a field near the site of Clavering Castle is
also called The Dam, referring to the diversion of the river in late Saxon
times, to produce power to work a watermill at the castle. The meadow
name, Skaines (Skeins Way today) sounds Scandinavian in origin, and
perhaps a remnant of Viking presence in this area. Street Field Common
derives from stræt,
a word often linked with Roman roads. On
the whole, however, field names are particularly valuable for recreating
the medieval scene: in Clavering there are field-name clues to church or
monastic ownership, lost manors, archaic land measurement,
water-engineering, waste reclamation, old commons, buried springs, cleared
woodland, soil fertility, types of cultivation, windmills, dovecotes, fish
ponds, gallows, cattle-droving, impounding animals, farm animals, crops,
weeds, trees, wild animals and of course to long-forgotten villagers,
farmers and non-resident landowners of the past.
Fortunately
this kind of evidence is now being gathered throughout the county in the
pioneering Essex Place Name Study, being organised by the Essex Society
for Archaeology & History. The Clavering tithe names have recently
been added to the database through the hard work of Neil Bayford. Mary
Hesse has done a number of north-west Essex parishes, the Manuden Local
History Society, the Hadstock Society and others have also taken part in
the project. Volunteers are needed in other parishes to carry out further
surveys using tithe and other maps, documents and field studies, to add to
this valuable body of evidence. If so
many references can be found in the field names of just one parish, it
suggests that, overall, philological evidence forms a huge resource and
one which, in conjunction with local knowledge, fieldwork, archaeology and
documentary research, can offer considerable insight into a rural scene
now largely gone. SOURCES Guildhall Library Mss
13737: 1783 Christ’s Hospital Plan & Award. Note:
Further information on the Essex Place Names Project can be
obtained from Dr. J. Kemble, 27 Tor Bryan, Ingatestone, Essex CMA 9JZ. ©
Jacqueline Cooper & Saffron Walden Historical Society 2002
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SAFFRON WALDEN HISTORICAL JOURNAL |