The River Path
River Language
At the turn of the river the language changes,
A different babble, even a different name for the same river
River, Carol Ann Duffy
The richness of our long cultural relationship with rivers is evident in the names we know them by and the clues which linger in our place names. We have all but forgotten that many old languages jostle with modern English. Avon is still recognisable as the Welsh word - afon - and has persisted as a proper name where the newcomers did not understand that the word simply meant river in the old language.
We have many words for streams. Sike or sick, a name used in the north of England for a runnel or trickle of water has its equivalent sitch in the south. Beck and gill (from Old Norse) are north country words for brook which tend to be used most in Cumbria and Lancashire, whereas burns prevalent in Scotland also flow eastward down from the Cheviots and the moors across Northumberland. The winterbournes of Wiltshire and Dorset are known in the Yorkshire Wolds as gipseys, as nailbournes in Kent and lavants in Hampshire. Rhynes are the names given to ditches made to drain the Somerset Levels, in west Sussex they are called rifes.
Waterfalls are called forces in Yorkshire, elsewhere they may be described as falls, steps, cascades, gorges, cataracts, spouts, rapids and eas.
Our ancestors described significance and captured meaning in names. Many place names show the importance of water springs (Fonthill, Teffont fontana, a fountain or spring), wells (Sadler's Wells, Southwell, Chigwell); fords the most numerous descriptive name relating to water (Oxford, Fordingbridge, Belfast sandbank ford); bridges (Trowbridge tree bridge, Bristol meeting place at the bridge, Bridgenorth, or simply Brigg); weirs (Ware place by a weir, Edgware Ecgi's weir); ferrys (Rock Ferry, North and South Ferriby); places by mill streams (Melbourne, Millom) and by waterfalls (Moness).
Many of the names of rivers themselves are descriptive: Thames dark; Cam, Croome, Wellow winding; Aire, Taw, Tern strong/swift; Stour strong/powerful; Leadon, Lydden broad; Kyle, Coly narrow; Cray pure, clear; Derwent, Darent, Dart oaklined; Iwerne yew-lined, and so on. The discipline of etymology has learnt much since Ekwall produced 'River Names' in 1928 but this book is still the exciting starting point for further speculations, as well as the county volumes of the English Place Name Society.
In Northamptonshire, somewhere between Wellingborough and Thrapston the River Nene changes its pronunciation to the south it is the nen or nairn, to the north the neen, this identifies further particularity.
The Tarrant, a small tributary of the Stour, has stamped identity onto the villages in its catchment: it gives its name to a number of Dorset villages the Tarrants - Gunville, Hinton, Launceston, Monkton, Rawston, Rushton, Keynston. This stream, a winterbourne in its upper reaches, owns the valley. It is thought that it's name means trespasser - it wanders into the road, after prolonged rain, sometimes for half a mile, but the road was not there first.
Along the stretch of the Thames through the City, the new Tate or Millennium Bridge continues the accumulation of names - Old Swan Pier, Nicholson's Steam Packet Wharf, Irongate Stair, Limehouse Reach, Cast Iron Wharf, Puddle Dock, Pickle Herring Stair, Old Jamaica Wharf.
Pub names carry references to previous customs or events. 'The Fountain' at the northern base of Shaftesbury's steep greensand hill recollects the dependence which the hilltop town had on the village of Enmore Green the source of its pure water and the basis of the strange Byzant Ceremony, a ritual of exchange.
In Sutton Poyntz, south Dorset, the pub sign for 'The Springhead' shows horses hauling a giant pipe. It transpires that when the Great Eastern, Brunel's first ocean liner, was broken up around 1890 the Weymouth Water Company bought one of its five huge funnels and installed it in the spring above the village, where it still collects millions of gallons a day.
From Rivers Rhynes and Running Brooks -
Local Distinctiveness and the water in our lives
Common Ground, 2000.
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