Place Names (Part 2)

In the original Norse area of Wirral the boundaries were defined by the River Mersey, the Irish Sea, the River Dee and a line cutting across from Ness/Neston, underneath Raby and probably up what is now lower Dibbinsdale/Plymyard dale (this used to be called Mikledale from the Old Norse mikill meaning great or large and dalr meaning valley - so "great valley") .

The boundary probably runs along the great valley up along the ridge of high ground (now Mount Road) separating Bebington from Storeton then up to Tranmere and there are old field names in the area of the boundary such as Dedemonnes Greue ("dead man's wood") and Lathegestfeld (probably meaning "unwelcome guests field") and Gremotehalland ("place of meeting under a truce") which may have derived from the time the Scandinavian and surrounding communities were separated.

What do you think is the significance of the name Raby?

It is an old Viking name ra-byr meaning boundary or border settlement.

Now look at the distribution of the major place names in Wirral with Norwegian (or Irish-Norwegian) origins.  Most of these lie within the boundary. But now look at the distribution of all the names (this includes minor field names and road names) with Norse roots.  You can see that the Vikings were to spread throughout the whole of Wirral.  

Look at these diagrams

The image below shows major Wirral place names with Scandinavian elements.

Bear in mind also the Vikings would not have changed the name of an existing Celtic or Anglo-Saxon name (unless they couldn't pronounce it) so the Scandinavian settlement in Wirral must have been significant.

Common road and field names in Wirral with Norse origin are carr (which comes from kjarr meaning marshy area), holm or home (which doesn't mean house but comes from holmr meaning an island of useful land in a marshy area), slack (which comes from slakki meaning a cutting or hollow through some hilly or rocky area), breck (from brekka) which is a slope on a hillside and rake (which comes from rak meaning a lane)
 If you know any Rake Lanes then it means double use of lane, literally Lane Lane!

It is no use just identifying a place that sounds Norwegian as evidence of the presence of Norwegian Vikings.  
 The antiquity (that means how ancient) of a place needs to be established.  A good starting point for the information has come from a complete survey of the Wirral area undertaken between the years 1830 and 1850.
It was a survey of who owned land in all of the parishes, who rented from these landowners, what the fields, roads etc. were all called and where they were located.  
  This survey is known as the Tithe map survey.  Tithing is an old English name meaning to rent or let people live on your land so long as they paid you regular amounts of money - known as rental.
 These Tithe maps and rental details have been extremely valuable.  In fact some land ownership details go back almost to the time of the Viking period.  If place names are similar to those appearing on Tithe maps we can have some certainty they derive from the Viking period.
   A large number of these documents have been discussed in a magazine, or journal, which used to appear monthly (from 1890 to about 1965) called the Cheshire Sheaf.  This magazine has greatly helped researchers working on Wirral's Viking history.

 

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