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The Archaeology of some North Devon Place-Names - Terry Green (Newsletter No 5 2003) Our place-names are a record of our ancestors’
diverse experience of their landscape and are one way in which they speak
to us directly. Most of the place-names that we find on the map were established
before the 12th century and because they were coined in Old English and
have been distorted by usage, they now appear obscure and sometimes even
comical. To those who first spoke them, however, they were clear references
to features of the land that they inhabited. And for this reason, an understanding
of their significance is a useful tool for the archaeologist. Below are
a few reflections on some North Devon placenames. (Interpretations are
based on Gover, Mawer and Stenton: Place-Names of Devon, Marwood Landkey Parkham
King’s, Bishop’s and George Nympton The Nympton parishes lie adjacent to the River Mole and it is suggested by Ekwall (Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names , 4th edition 1960, 346) that Nymet is an old name for the Mole (Mole being a back-formation from Molton). It appears, however, that the Nymptons together may represent an ancient large land unit from which the river took its earlier name. In the Saxon period this was a royal estate, of which part was granted to the Bishop of Exeter. If all of the Nymptons represent a single large early estate, it would be quite characteristic for it to be named from a major topographic feature, so that Nymet + ton means ‘estate on the River Nymet/in the Nymet region’. Both the River Mole and the River Yeo which flows into the Taw at Nymet Rowland (one of another cluster of Nymet names), were once called Nymet, the name having very likely been transferred to the rivers from the area through which they flow. It is generally agreed that Nymet derives from the Celtic nemeton, a widespread place-name element in the Celtic world, meaning ‘sacred place’, principally a grove or wood (Old Welsh nyfed, ‘shrine, Old Irish nemed, ‘sanctuary’) The Roman Nemetostatio (‘tax-gathering station at the sacred grove’) is generally identified with North Tawton in which Hundred the Nymets lie. Nympsfield, Glos also contains the element; as does Aquae Arnemetiae the Roman name for the spa at Buxton, Derbyshire. It occurs in numerous continental names. A late Roman source, a treatise on pagan practices, speaks about ‘de sacris silvarum quae nimidas vocant’ (of sacred places in the woods which they call nimidas) (Rivet and Smith 1979, 254) The Nymptons and the Nymets lie within an area which, to judge by the place-names, remained heavily wooded until a relatively late date. On the south-eastern edge of this area is Morchard Bishop. Morchard (DB Morchet) represents British Celtic mor+ cet ‘great wood’. It seems possible that we have here an area with religious associations from the pre-Roman period. Any such associations remained strong enough to be maintained in the form of a district name despite the otherwise blanket removal of British Celtic place-names from Devon at the West Saxon take-over. |
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