Caelf = calf. The Saxon name for Challock was Caelf-loca-n, _i.e._,
enclosed place for calves. The second syllable suggests the Latin locus,
but is the source of our English Lock, _i.e._, shut up. So the locks on
the river; and pounds for straying cattle are “lokes” in East Anglia.
Pleg-huses = theatres (or recreation grounds). Our Plaistow and Plaxtol.
Syla = wallowing place. So our numerous Soles, which I later enumerate.
Dimhus and Dimhof = hiding or dark place. Our Dymchurch are instances.
Crocc and Hweras are both Saxon for pots. Few know what pure Saxon they
use when they talk of crockery-ware. Pottery was always a great industry
from Sittingbourne to Sheppey, and the Romans appreciated and extended
it. This may account for our Crokham Hill, Crockham, Crockhurst Street,
and Crockshard.
Cocca, gen. plural = chickens. Cock St., Cockham Wood, Cockshill,
Coxheath, Cockadam Shaw, while in Detling we have Cock-hill, Upper and
Lower Cox Street. Some may, of course, be modern and personal names; but
I cannot so trace them.
Boley Hill, near Rochester, was undoubtedly a place of civic importance
in very early days. It was a Danish meeting place corresponding to our
shire-mote at Pennington Heath, and we may best trace its name to a
Danish word which we still use—the bole of a tree. This is found in
various parts of the Danish district of Lincolnshire, and the reference
may be to the hill with a famous tree under which the court of the
community was held. Trees, as well as cromlechs or great stones, were
common landmarks in Saxon times—hence our various Stones in Kent.
Others, however, consider it a corruption of Beaulieu, a name given by
the Templars to the sites of their preceptories, and they instance a
Boley or Bully Mead in East London, which belonged to the Templars. And
others, because of its ancient legal associations, think it should be
Bailey Hill, and refer us to the Old Bailey in London.
Farleigh.—On a clear day from Detling Hill we can see, not only
Farleigh, near Maidstone, but Fairlight Church, near Hastings. In Saxon
days and documents these place-names were the same, and so in Domesday
(1086), each is Ferlega, the passage or fareing through the pastures or
leys, just as our modern Throwley is Trulega, with the scribes’
variations in 12th century deeds of Thruleghe, Trulleda, Trulea,
Thrulege, and Trudlege. Fairlight, therefore, is simply a modern
corruption after a fashion which once corrupted the name of Leigh, near
Tonbridge, which I find written Legh in 1435, Ligth in 1513, Lyghe in
1525, and Lyght in 1531. It has been suggested that the first syllable
may indicate a personal name, Fær; but this seems less tenable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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