The non-Celtic place-names of the Scottish Border counties

• Main Author: Williamson, May Gordon
• Published: University of Edinburgh 1943
• Subjects: 427
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.494613

This thesis has been produced under the conditions of the Gatty (Florence Emily and Charles Tindal) Memorial Scholarship, the holder of which "must pursue advanced study or research in Scottish Language and Literature with special reference to dialects on both sides of the border and to such border antiquities and music as bear on the subject". In order to satisfy these requirements as far as possible, rather more attention has been given to historical and dialectal notes than is usual or necessary in place-name studies. The following work is intended as a survey of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian place-name. material in the Border Counties. I have tried to demonstrate chat types of names occur, where they are situated, and roughly to what period they belong. Thus it has been more convenient to group the names under their endings than to arrange them by parishes in the manner of the English Place-Name Society's volumes. It is almost impossible to date Scottish places with any certainty since spellings for the majority are not found before the 13th Century, but generally they may be classified under three headings (a) Old English; (b) Middle English (c) Scandinavian, and Middle English of Scandinavian origin. Between the first two classes there must be a good deal of overlapping. It is known that names in -ing, -ingaham, -ingtun and -ham probably ceased to be formed after the OE period, but many of the other habitational endings which in England belong. to this time must have continued to be formed at a much later date in the North. Similarly many of the names classified as Middle English may belong to the OE period. It has been my practice to count as an ending second element of each name if a habitative or topographical term. Thus Torwoodlee is discussed under -wood and Capehope Burn under -hope. Only the main, or original, parts of names are of importance in a survey of this kind, and so where groups occur such as Caverton, C- Mains, C- Hillhead, C- Mill, I have dealt only with the basic name, Caverton. Names which do not appear in the 1 inch. Ordnance Survey maps, but which are found in sources before 1600, have been used for purposes of illustration and comparison. In most cases I have not consulted the 6 inch maps in attempts to locate these or other minor names. The phonetic symbols used in the transcription of place-name pronunciations are those normally employed by the E. P. N. S.