This is the first comprehensive, scholarly, single volume dictionary of English place‐names, expanding and updating Ekwall (1960) and Mills (1998) as well as other more popular dictionaries. It has been in preparation for, 15 years and during that time, and in the few decades before, members of the English Place‐Names Society and other scholars have been examining vast quantities of archival materials such as chronicles, cartularies, charters, and monastic and legal records. Some of the results of that work have already been published in the Society's journal and in their county volumes, and the editors of this dictionary have drawn extensively on those publications and on the Society's archive housed at Nottingham University.
Whereas Ekwall based his dictionary on Bartholomew's Survey Gazetteer of the British Isles, selecting only those with some claim to antiquity and ignoring others that were comparatively late or self‐explanatory, Watts lists all the present‐day names of cities, towns, villages, hamlets, rivers, streams, hills and other geographical locations, regardless of their age, that are shown in the Ordnance Survey Road Atlas of Great Britain (1983). Each place is identified by its post 1974 county or local administration names, quoting standard national grid reference letters and numbers (York, SE 6052, for example), with the age and meaning of the name (“place of the yew‐tree(s)” in that instance). Then follows various spellings, as recorded by date in the documentary records, and an explanation of the elements that comprise the name. Watts explains that not only the quantity but also the quality of evidence available varies with the accuracy of transcription from scholar to scholar, and he cites examples from the standard studies of Gloucestershire place‐names. Finally, after citations in the literature, referring to the Society's volumes that deal with the historic counties and to other studies, there is guidance on pronunciation, which is a notoriously treacherous aspect of English place‐names.
The preface draws careful distinction between the separate elements of names, so that Bredon, for example, although the components both mean “hill”, and apparently pleonastic, it actually means “a hill called Bre” since the early English settlers accepted the British name and added their own element, “dūn”; Bredon Hill therefore, merely adds a further explanation. The dictionary attempts to say something about the historical, administrative, commercial and economic significance of names in addition to their etymological meanings. The example quoted is Acton: the meaning is clear, but the significance is probably less often “farm built of oak or by or among oaks” than “a place where oak is obtained or worked”. A glossary of the most frequently used place‐name elements appears in the introductory pages, with sketches showing characteristic features of the landscape, and some of these are now thought to be more precise than originally defined. The etymology of these elements refers to cognates in a wide range of other dead and living Indo‐European languages. The introductory material also contains 12 maps illustrating the distribution of elements and features in the three main areas of settlement, that is to say broad strips running roughly from south west to north east.
Most rivers are named, but for most of them you must refer to Ekwall (1928). Divisions of counties – Hundreds, Ridings, Rapes and others – are not listed, although the Parts of Lincolnshire are. I looked in vain for the name of the hamlet where I spent my childhood, but it is not in the Ordnance Survey Road Atlas of Great Britain either. West Hyde, the little village in Hertfordshire where my grandmother came from, is not listed despite being shown in the road atlas, although the etymology is transparent. There are some discrepancies between Watts, Ekwall and Mills; for Cuckfield Watts plumps for “open land where cuckoos are heard”, Mills offers “open land of a man named Cuca”, and Ekwall suggests both. For Leatherhead, Mills goes for a Celtic origin, “grey ford”, Ekwall says “public path or ford”, and Watts agrees with Ekwall and declares that the alternative British etymology “is unnecessary”. For Camberwell, Ekwall suggests “crane stream or lake”, Mills says the first element is obscure, and Watts agrees that it is uncertain, but it might be borrowed from the Latin “camera”, a vault or room at the spring; Morris (1973) says that, like Comberton and Cumberland, the first element refers to a settlement of the British. Clearly, the jury is still out. English place‐names have been exported to all those parts of the world where the English have settled, principally in North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. (Americans should be aware that the many places they have named Lexington preserves a 17 century spelling of Laxton.)
Watts admits to standing on the shoulders of earlier giants in this field, and it is sad that he died a mere matter of months before this dictionary was published. His achievement is nevertheless impressive, and it is very unlikely that it will be superseded very soon, although the study of place‐names is a continuing field of research and discovery, and I hope that we can expect revised editions. Even at this price it is essential for all medium‐sized libraries.
