Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
I think the trick is to pronounce Edinburgh with a thick, James Doohan-esque Montgomery Scotty Scott accent: "Ach, me an tha bairns hav al bin doon tha tattoo at Idinburughhhhe Carstle." Try the same with Brunanburh and you'll get similar results. Regional dialects probably account for most of the lack of uniformity in placename spellings, I suspect.
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:32 am Posts: 265 Location: Preston
Troo, also corek spellin as we unnerstanit wasn' fort emportant and probly didn' egsist as a nidy till erli 19 cenchury.
Can't keep that up. According to Bagley and Hodgkiss 'Lancashire: A History of .....in Early Maps' (pubd 1985 & picked up for £1 at last CBA conference) map makers (or engravers abroad) often didn't bother surveying but just nicked detail of preceding map. So Blaeu in Holland in 1645 produced a Lancashire map based on Speed's but changed 'Ince' to 'Lace', 'Sefton' to 'Shefton' Speed's 'Burscot' (Burscough) into 'Burscos' and Speed's 'Preescoo' (Preesall) 'Prisco', Speed himself had 'Chat Moss' as 'Channosse'.
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
Dave,
Wasn't it Caxton with his printing press who first standardised English spelling? (Could be wrong about that...just vaguely remember hearing something along those lines somewhere.) Whatever the case, he didn't standardise dialect, so different interpretations and spellings of placenames based on the local lingo would no doubt still have been occuring up until recently. (Actually, if you look at any tram shelter wall in the district, it appears to be continuing to this day.)
As for the miscopying of plagiarised maps, it's a case of European Chinese Whispers at work. Not as bad as the American 'Travel Guide to Britain' that Bill Bryson mentions in one of his books though, which states that Scotland is in the north of England. Am suor tha gid folk o' Idinburrehh wid be nae tee pleesed aboot thart. (They probably wouldn't be none too pleased at my attempts to replicate their accent either, come to think of it.)
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:32 am Posts: 265 Location: Preston
I was bit out on my date. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 set out standard spellings but I read somewhere that it didn't get settled till the next century. Incidentally I've a copy of Mallory's 'Le Morte D'Arthur' as printed by Caxton. (Obviously not an original). It has a (modern) glossary at the back of C15 words/phrases no longer used. Altho when I was a lad in Warrington and complained of the cold my elder cousin would say 'Don't be so nesh.' The word 'neysshe' appears in the glossary. meaning 'soft'.
I've been to the Library today looking at the maps.
The 1939 OS map shows the windpump on Stanah Hill.
Also interesting to see that Underbank Road on the 1912 OS map isn't as it is today but turns down the lane towards Ramper Pot .. the continuation is Stanah Road right down.
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
Melanie,
I've noticed the Underbank Road/Stannah Road name change on maps before. No idea why (or even exactly when) it was altered, but it's an odd one.
Also interesting on the lower map is the partial road running from north to south between Raikes and Underbank (as Underbank is now). This road originally, no doubt, followed the hedgeline all the way to the south end of Underbank Road (does any of this make sense? I'm having a hard time following what I'm writing myself here) and has typical Saxon tenement fields on either side of it.
The chances are this was where the original Saxon village of Stanah was laid out, the now missing road acting originally as the central axis. I remember Neil telling me once that there were some large, raised rectangular grass platforms in those fields, typical of Saxon house platforms. (Just thought I'd throw that one in before I go and rustle up some corned beef hash for tea.)
I hadn't thought of that road continuing but have looked at it for the pic I'm trying to place that says Underbank on. It would also make sense of the shape of the other road .. making it a rectangle similar to Holmes but longer.
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
Melanie,
Here we go...I've marked it all on for you. You find more or less the same layout at Bourne round the back of Springfield Drive...or whatever its called. The green field is, appropriately enough, recorded on the tithe maps as the Green...which is typical of Saxon village greens by being on the outskirts of the village rather than in the centre. (That's where the annual fairs were held you see, and you wouldn't want herds of excited cattle and drunken merchants trampling all over your flowerbeds.) I bet there's a few Saxon relics under that turf.
The red line indicates the route taken by the Romano-British road after it leaves Stanah Hill, as pointed out to me by the late Neil Thompson and the late John Shorrocks. It heads off underneath the new housing estate at point 'A' (where the standing stone -- later reused as a gatepost -- marks its disappearance) and eventually turns up again at Bourne Hill looking very smug with itself.
Incidentally, if you stand on the top of Kelbreck and look across you can see the crop marks running across the fields where the Saxon road (that's the yellow one) used to be. I might have put that last kink in following the hedgeline by mistake. I think it actually continues more or less straight across the field.
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
It's quite a large subject is that, Melanie...there's a good episode of Time Team that covers it quite comprehensively I seem to recall, but you'll have to wait until it comes back round again. Anything in particular that you're after?
I just wanted to put a few lines on my site (in the general Thornton section) about why it's possible the original village could have been in that spot.
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm Posts: 1840 Location: Fleetwood
Melanie,
Okay...let's see...for a start there's the central road and strip field layout with the 'green' on the outskirts, typical, like I say, of Saxon villages. Some Saxon villages did have an arrangement of buildings around a central green, but these are actually surprisingly rare. Most follow the central road design.
Then there's the boundaries...Underbank Road being the most obvious. Underbank (or Stanah Road as it's marked on your map, for the most part) is actually a hollow way...in fact, more than that, it's a double-dyked hollow way. These types of hollow ways were dug to act specifically as boundaries, and then later used as sunken road systems. In this instance, all the Saxon fieldnames fall on the east side of Underbank Road, and all the Celto-Norse fieldnames fall on the river side, suggesting that the boundary was dug to separate the Saxon village from the Celto-Norse one.
And, of course, there's the platforms that Neil Thompson informed me about. (I've never seen them myself because I've never had permission to wander about in these particular fields, but I've no reason to doubt what Neil told me.) Saxon buildings were constructed from wooden posts and wattle and daub walls, so it was important to keep them out of the damp. That's why they constructed raised earth platforms like these first.
The layout, the shapes of the fields, the central road, the double-dyked boundary, the position of the green, the Saxon fieldnames and the rectangular earth platforms all add up fairly convincingly to the idea that this was the location of the Saxon village. (At least, they do in my book. A bit of excavation work in those fields should set the seal on the theory though.)
I ought to add, that this would be the Saxon village of Stanah. The Saxon village of Thornton would have been down the other end of Raikes Road where it meets Lambs Road and Woodhouse Road.
Sometimes I just so wish that either FB and I were over there in England on these digs or that our own local history was as available as looking at crop marks, you lucky things!
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