A Dictionary of British Place‐Names

Place‐names are taken for granted for most of the time, even by local residents, but confronted by this title, one inevitably checks the name of one's own town or village. Thus I learn from David Mills’ new book that Wenhaston, a village of a few hundred souls near Halesworth in Suffolk, was known in the Domesday Book as Wenadestuna, possibly meaning a farmstead or village belonging to a man named Wynhaeth. Interestingly, this degree of accuracy is not available for London where I used to live. Mills tells us that early attempts to explain the ancient name of London have...