SAFFRON WALDEN HISTORICAL JOURNAL

The Saffron Walden Historical Journal was launched in 2001 by the Saffron Walden Historical Society and all issues to date have been kept in print. It is now proposed to discontinue reprints of the early issues and instead provide the articles online, via the Recorders of Uttlesford website. Articles are reproduced by kind permission of the authors and remain the copyright of the Journal. Their publication on this website does not constitute permission to copy into any other medium, without the express permission of the Editor, who can be contacted through this website. Permission will normally be granted for non-commercial usage. The articles may be used for educational and research purposes by bona fide researchers. They can be found either under the place to which they relate or, if covering a wider area, under the Uttlesford history section. Further articles will be added twice a year, but only several years after original publication. Those wishing to contact the authors can do so via the editor. Please note that in most cases the original illustrations are not included but can be seen by consulting the original journals held at Saffron Walden Town Library.

Jacqueline Cooper, Editor

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 Alflathenheyderive 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.

ERO T/M 215: 1625 Clavering & Berden estate map

ERO D/DP M 1173-4; D/DP M 1164-5; D/DP T 1/73, 1253-1470, 2075-2107: Petre family records re Thurrocks/Pounces estate.

ERO D/CT 86: 1840 Tithe Map for Clavering

ERO 333/1/33: 1823 Beating the Bounds account

Feet of Fines of Essex, Vols I and II

1881 Census of Clavering

Clavering Enclosure Award, 1861

Clavering Parish Church guide

Clavering Village Guide

Farries, K. Essex Windmills, Vol 1.

Field, J.English field names: a dictionary (1972).

Field, J. A history of English field names (1993).

Gelling, M. Signposts to the Past: place-names and the history of England (1978).

Hall, D. Medieval Fields (1982).

Hoskins, W. G. The making of the English landscape (1955, new ed. 1988).

Ludgate, E. Clavering & Langley 1783-1983 (1983).

Rackham, O. The history of the countryside (1986).

Reaney, P. H. The place-names of Essex (1935).

Taylor, C. Village and farmstead: a history of rural settlement in England (1983).

Victoria County History of Essex, 3 (1963)

Williamson, T. ‘The development of settlement in north-west Essex: the results of a recent field survey’, Essex Archaeology and History, 17 (1986), 120-129.

Williamson, T. ‘The Roman countryside: settlement and agriculture in N.W. Essex’, Britannia 15 (1984), 225-230.

Williamson, T. The Origins of Norfolk (1993).

Wood, R.: lecture in Clavering, essay, & unpublished research notes, used with permission; correspondence with John Field, used with permission; oral history interviews with local residents.

Note:Further information on the Essex Place Names Project can be obtained from Dr. J. Kemble, 27 Tor Bryan, Ingatestone, Essex CMA 9JZ.

© Saffron Walden Historical Society 2002