Each of these four words exists by itself as a specific place-name and also as a surname. In fact Lee and Ford are among our commonest local surnames. In the same way the local origin of such names as Clay and Chalk may be specific as well as general. But I do not propose to deal here with the vast subject of our English village names, but only with the essential elements of which they are composed, elements which were often used for surnominal purposes long before the spot itself had developed into a village. [Footnote: A good general account of our village names will be found in the Appendix to Isaac Taylor's Names and their Histories. It is reprinted as chapter xi of the same author's Words and Places (Everyman Library). See also Johnston's Place-names of England and Wales, a glossary of selected names with a comprehensive introduction. There are many modern books on the village names of various counties, e.g. Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Suffolk (Skeat), Oxfordshire (Alexander), Lancashire (Wyld and Hirst), West Riding of Yorkshire (Moorman), Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire (Duignan), Nottinghamshire (Mutschmann), Gloucestershire (Baddeley), Herefordshire (Bannister), Wiltshire (Elsblom), S.W. Yorkshire (Goodall), Sussex (Roberts), Lancashire (Sephton), Derbyshire (Walker), Northumberland and Durham (Mawer).] Thus the name Oakley must generally have been borne by a man who lived on meadow land which was surrounded or dotted with oak-trees. But I should be shy of explaining a given village called Oakley in the same way, because the student of place-names might be able to show from early records that the place was originally an ey, or island, and that the first syllable is the disguised name of a medieval churl. These four simple etymons themselves may also become perverted. Thus -ham is sometimes confused with -holm (Chapter XII), -ley, as I have just suggested, may in some cases contain -ey, -ton occasionally interchanges with -don and -stone, and -lord with the French -fort (Chapter XIV). In this chapter will be found a summary of the various words applied by our ancestors to the natural features of the land they lived on. To avoid too lengthy a catalogue, I have classified them under the three headings-- (1) Hill and Dale, (2) Plain and Woodland, (3) Water and Waterside, reserving for the next chapter the names due to man's interference with the scenery, e.g. roads, buildings, enclosures, etc.