by David Peter

Inspired by the excellent talk on the origin of place names, given to the Society in December 1982 by Mr J. Hughes of Kendal, the writer of this article was tempted to look more closely at place and other names in his own locality and to try to determine their origins and meanings.

The area selected, namely Silverdale, formed part of the ancient parish of Warton, and it is hoped that as a result of this exercise other members of the MLHS may become sufficiently interested as to ‘tackle’ the place names in their own neighbourhoods. Many of the explanations and origins given below are derived from the works of Professor Eilert Ekwall. It seems strange that he, a Scandinavian, should have been such an eminent authority on English place names. Many of the names, however, have too local a significance to have been considered by Ekwall. In a number of such cases the meanings are obvious, but where this is not so, possible explanations have been suggested.

Silverdale (together with Arnside) occupies a rocky peninsula bounded by a line of low cliffs. It is almost completely surrounded by water and marsh. In fact until relatively recent times it was to all intents and purposes an island. There is little or no evidence from its place names that it offered much attraction to the English (mainly Anglian) or later the Danish invaders who penetrated and settled in N.W. England in the centuries after the departure of the Romans, although their presence on the mainland of N.W, England is evidenced by the number of settlements in Lancashire and Cumbria with the following typical name endings:

In the Warton area, for example, there are many examples of these:

However, it was not until the invasion of N.W.. England, around 900 A.D., by peoples of Scandinavian origin, whose ancestors had much earlier rounded northern Scotland and settled in Ireland and the Isle of Man, that the place names suggest permanent settlements in the Silverdale peninsula, typical Norse words are

Names of Settlements

Silverdale

Popular theories as to the origin of this name are:

• a. that it derives from the colour of the exposed carboniferous limestone rocks which underlie the whole area, and
• b. that it relates to the silver birches, a common tree in the woodlands hereabouts.

It now appears certain, however, that it was the valley or dale (Old Norse, dalr) settled by one Selvers, a Norse personal name, which produced the name of the place. The earliest form of it (1199) was ‘Selredal’.

Arnside

Arnside was the summer pasture (Old Norse (ON), saetr) of a farmer called Arni

Lindeth

Lindeth may in fact be the oldest settlement. The earliest form of the name was ‘Lyndeheved’ (Old English (OE) linde = lime tree; OE heafod = hill summit).

Names of Natural Features

Barrow

There are four possible explanations of the origin of this word; OE burg = fort, OE bearu = grove or wood, OE beorg = tumulus or burial mound, and OE beorg = hill or mound.

In Silverdale, the fourth of these is the probable origin. Examples: Middlebarrow, Castlebarrow, Gait Barrow, Trowbarrow, and further afield, Cringlebarrow and Whitbarrow. The ’trow’ part of Trowbarrow is an abbreviation of ’trough’, and this refers to a natural trough or trench, varying in width and depth, which emerges from Leighton Moss, runs in a northerly direction across the face of Trowbarrow for four miles and then disappears into the Kent channel near Sandside. ’Brow’, as in Heald Brow, could be either a corruption of ‘barrow’ or possibly derived from OE bru = slope.

Slack

From ON slakki = shallow dell or valley. Examples, Waterslack, Elmslack, Slackwood, Dogslack (Well), Orchard Slack (near Cove), and further afield, Witherslack and Hazelslack.

Bottom

From OE botm or ON botn = valley or dell. Examples, Bottom’s Lane, Bottom’s Farm

Haweswater

From OE Earnwulf = a personal name or OE heafod = hill or ON hals = a col (pass between two hills) plus ‘water’.

This small lake was at one time referred to as Arnside Dub. ‘Dub’ = a small pool or pond.

Eaves

From OE efes = border, edge of wood (later also brow of hill). Eaves Wood is now National Trust property.

Know Hill

From OE knoll = hillock.

Cow’s Mouth

Possibly a landfall, provided by a break in the cliffs, for cattle drovers driving their herds across the Kent Sands to markets in industrial Lancashire.

Heald

From OE hielde = a slope. Example, Heald Brow.

Jack Scout From OE ac = oak, or ON eik = oak; and ON skuti = high rock or precipice.

Moss

From OE moss = marsh or bog’ or ON mose = marsh or bog

Examples, Leighton Moss, Haweswater Moss, Silverdale Moss, and Arnside Moss.

Jenny Brown’s Point

There are many fanciful explanations of the origin of this name. What is certain is that a man called Brown farmed in this area in the 17th century. It seems reasonable to assume that Jenny was a member of his family. Close to the farm (Dykes Farm) there is a row of several houses known as Brown’s Cottages.

Cove

From OE cofa = a recess or cove

Quick Sand Pool

The lower reach of the stream which drains Leighton Moss. The name is self explanatory.

Silverdale Green

‘Green’ was the name given to public grass land situated near to a village. The Enclosure Acts gradually swallowed them up. The name, however, persists in many places, as here.

Potter Hill

The Wallings Lane-Elmslack Lane area was the site of one or more potteries in mediaeval times. Much evidence of this in the form of shards and domestic utensil fragments has been unearthed whilst the gardens of new properties built here in recent years were being developed. The source of clay was the shoreline of Haweswater (fields called Clayholes). Markets were probably quite local, but may have included Cartmel and Conishead Priories and Furness Abbey across the sands.

Names of Roads

Gate

Probably from ON gata = road. Examples, Emesgate, Bradshaw Gate, Waterslack Gate, Ford Gate. ’Gait* as in Gait Barrow probably means ’goat’.

Stankelt Road

From OE stan = stone and ON kelda = spring or well Stankelt Road was formerly (1817 Enclosure Map) called Levens Field Road. Levens was the name of a fanner in Lindeth. His name is now preserved in Levens Way.

Park Lane

Either (a) a corruption of Parrock (enclosure)

or (b) so called because of the park-like appearance of the adjoining fields, created by the planting of many trees (mainly oaks), singly and in groups, by the Inman family who lived at Hill House and owned this land in the first half of the 18th century.

At one stage (1848 O.S. Map) it was called Mine Road. A field near Red Bridge Farm is called Mine Field. It has also been known as Chapel Lane.

Wallings Lane

Members of the Walling family at one time owned the land on both sides of this lane.

Inman’s Road

This is the main track through Eaves Wood. The Inman family for many years lived at Hill House (later Woodlands).

Hollins Lane

From OE holegn = holly

Emesgate

No ready explanation is forthcoming as to the meaning of the ‘Emes’ part of this word. Could it be a corruption of ‘Eaves’ and thus the road to Eaves Wood?

Red Bridge Road

So called after the colour of the soil in this area (copper or iron ore). Formerly (1817 Enclosure Map) it was Myers Road.

Lindeth Road

It was formerly Sand Lane (1848 O.S. Map).

The Row

OE raw = a row of houses, a street. Several groups of old cottages still exist. They now merge with modern housing.

Townsfield

This name survives, and is applied to an unadopted road/footpath which connects Cove Road and Emesgate. This was the name given in the north of England to the common arable land of the village, before it was enclosed. The common field was divided into strips among the villagers. Much of what was once the ‘Town’ field has now been built on, but two large fields remain under grass.

Names of Farms

Silverdale is an unusual village, in that it has not grown up around some central point, determined by natural advantages. Rather has it developed as a series of separate farmsteads. Over the years certain of these increased in size as more land was brought under cultivation, necessitating additional workers and therefore extra accommodation. More recently, modem housing developments have linked up certain of these early settlements to produce a village, to which shops and other facilities have been attracted. Possible explanations of the names of a number of the farms have already been given under previous headings; for example, Slackwood, Red Bridge, Waterslack, Bottoms, Bradshawgate, etc.

The following farms with interesting names have not so far been mentioned.

Green Farm

Now derelict, it is part of the Silverdale Green nucleus.

Bank House

Possibly from OE banke or ON bakki – sloping ground or hill. It could also be attributed to

• (a) Sand Bank, it overlooks the shore and the river Kent,
• or (b) Bank, the home of a banker (cf. Waithman).

Dyke Farm

Land drainage ditches and channels of streams running into the sea are known locally as Dykes.

Fleagarth Farm (site of)

From either Danish flaeg = flag (iris) and other water plants (many still grow in this area), or ON fla = a small ledge on a hill side, plus ’garth’ = enclosure.

Myers Farm

From ON myrr = marsh or bog or Mid. English mire = marsh or bog

Gibralter

Many attempts have been made to explain this name, by splitting the word into three syllables, producing something like ‘the home of the family of …’. The true explanation is probably something very much simpler. It was at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century that the farms in this area, previously built of wood, were replaced by stone buildings. In 1704 Sir George Rooke captured Gibraltar, and it is not unreasonable to assume that in a moment of intense patriotism the new farm buildings made of stone on this site were given the name ‘Gibraltar’. No doubt its position on top of a rocky eminence, overlooking the sea, was vividly reminiscent of the Rock of Gibraltar.

Challan Hall Possibly from OE cealc = chalk or limestone, or possibly Challan was a family name.

Ossliff

From OE Oslaf = a personal name or ON Oswulf = a personal name or ON Osmund = a personal name

Names of Houses

The names of houses, especially of older properties, can often provide valuable information about the local ’scene’. A few examples from Silverdale will serve to illustrate this point.

Tower House

This is sited close to Gibraltar Farm and was so called because of a three storey summer house erected in its grounds in 1842 by a Mr Henry Paul Fleetwood. It is one of the few of the many summer houses (Belvederes or Gazebos) built by the owners of the larger houses in Silverdale around the middle of the last century which survive and have been well maintained. It is of particular interest because in the 1850’s Elizabeth Gaskell, the Victorian novelist, came to Silverdale with her children for their summer holidays and stayed at the adjoining farm. It appears certain that some of her books were at least conceived and possibly written in Lindeth Tower.

Wolf House

Nearby is Lindeth Lodge, popularly known as the ‘Wolf House’. In recent years it and its outbuildings had been converted into a very successful Art and Crafts centre, but now is holiday lets. There is a local ‘theory’ that the name ‘Wolf House’ derives from the fact that from it, on the opposite side of the Kent estuary and some four miles distant, Humphry Head is visible. This is one of the several places where the last wolf in Britain is reputed to have been killed. Actually, the house is so described because over the front door the coat of arms of the Fleetwood family has been incorporated into the stone work. Above the coat of arms and part of the crest is the figure of a wolf, and below the family motto, ‘Homo Homini Lupus’ (Man is a wolf to his fellow men).

Waithman House

This is one of the oldest houses in the village. It was once owned and occupied by a Quaker business man and banker of that name. He was interested in the manufacture of linen (for example, mills at Holme based on locally grown flax), and he probably helped finance the drovers who landed their cattle at nearby Cow’s Mouth after crossing the Kent Sands.

Old Post Office

The reason for this name is obvious. It is now a private residence, having ceased to function as a post office about the turn of the century.

The Shieling

This house at Richmond Hill was built about 1880 by Mrs Gaskell’s daughters. The name means a ‘summer pasture’ or a ‘homestead used only in summer’. It could be interpreted as perpetuating their mother’s idea of escaping from the smoke and grime of industrial Manchester to this rural retreat. From 1914 to 1948 it was the home of Mr Gordon Bottomley, author and poet.

Windyridge

This house is situated on Wallings Lane. It was occupied for 55 years, from 1919 to 1952, by the novelist William Riley. It was so called after the title of his most successful book, which was actually written in 1912 before he came to live in Silverdale.

Gray Green

This is one of the older houses on the ‘Green’. No suggested origin of the word ‘Gray’ is forthcoming. It is just possible, however, that it is derived from ‘Crayke’ (Welsh craig = a rock) and that Gray Green is a corruption of Crayke Green. It is certainly built on a rocky eminence.

Pye Hall

Possibly from OE pie = gnat and OE hath – low lying ground beside a stream or at the edge of mosses. It is an old house built on a slight eminence in a low lying area. This was obviously once swampy and was possibly, therefore, infested by insects.

Castlebarrow (The ‘Pepper Pot’)

Published in Mourholme Magazine Issue 4 Summer 1983

Silverdale Gate Names – Published in Mourholme Magazine Issue 5 Autumn 1983 in Notes and Queries

Mr Peter suggests that the ‘gate’ place names come from ON gata, ‘a road’. I think it is more likely that the Silverdale ‘gate’ names come from OE geat (Norn. pl. gatu), ’an opening, a gap’, often used to mean an opening in a fence and by implication a bander used to close it. In 17th century Silverdale documents the word appears as both ’yeat’ and ‘gate’ and refers unmistakably to gates or barriers. Ford Yeat and Winder/ Winter Gap Yeat were at Waterslack, the gate at the ford and the gate at the winder gap. The second element in ’winder/winter’ may be ON erg, *a summer hill pasture’, and ‘winder gap’ may have meant ‘the opening into the windy summer hill pasture’. The Bradshaws, who gave their name to Bradshaw Gate, were 16th century millers (a clue, perhaps, to the location of the Silverdale windmill). Emesgate, however, is a problem. Mr Peter suggests that the first element might be a corruption of ‘Eaves’, but the early documents have only various spellings of Emes (Eames, Emms). I wonder if it isn’t another ‘locating’ word like Ford and Winder Gap. OE efen, efn, emn meant ‘even, flat, level’. Whether it is possible that emn, which produced Emborough, could have produced Emesgate is a question I can’t answer, but it is easy to see why a gate here might have been identified as the gate ‘at the level place’. The terrain at Emesgate is certainly level; it is, in fact, the only really broad plateau-type area in Silverdale. NYT Source: A.H. Smith, English Place-Name Elements. Part I English Place-Name Society XXV (1956).