Day Conference, Perth, 7th November, 1998
NAMES AND BOUNDARIES was the title and theme of the Society's November 1998 Conference held in the A.K.Bell Library, Perth, and attended by 60 people.
There follow summaries of all the talks, except for Dr David Munro's Perambulating the Marches: Disputed Boundaries and Division of Commonty as Sources for the Toponymy of the Lomond Hills, which it is hoped to publish in a future Newsletter.
Unfortunately one of the advertised speakers, John Kerr from Atholl, was unable to attend due to illness. He has kindly agreed to give his talk, Along an Atholl Boundary, at the May 8 Conference in Edinburgh. Our Convenor, Ian Fraser, swiftly and ably filled the gap. with a paper entitled:
PLACE-NAME BOUNDARIES - WHERE AND WHY?
Ian Fraser.
Ian began his paper with a discussion of the two commonest boundary-elements in Scottish place-names, Gaelic crìoch (genitive crìche), and Scots march, to be found on, for example, parish and estate boundaries, as well as on the boundaries of Lowland farms and Highland crofting townships. He then discussed those names containing Scots threip ‘dispute', which combines with a wide range of elements such as wood, land, syke, muir, rig, inch. {1} The disputes usually arose because the places in question lay on or near a boundary. The walking of disputed boundaries not only provides richly detailed medieval charters but also colourful stories from more recent times of boys having pain inflicted on them at key points along the march so that they would remember exactly where the boundary ran. For example at certain points along the complex and contentious boundary between Lewis and Harris pits were dug, which were filled with charcoal, {2} and at each of these sites a boy from either side was beaten with birches, so that they would remember the march to their dying day.
Footnotes
{1} For more on threip in place-names, including a distribution map, see pp. 68 & 71 of G.W.S. Barrow, ‘The Uses of Place-names and Scottish History - Pointers and Pitfalls', in S. Taylor ed. The Uses of Place-Names (Edinburgh, 1998), 54-74.
{2) (Char)coal is mentioned several times in a boundary charter of 1466 describing the marches of lands near Blairgowrie PER belonging to Scone and Coupar Angus abbeys. At six carefully described points along the marches are set up a stone cross and a pile of stones with (char)coals (crux lapidea et congeries lapidum cum carbonibus). The coal was no doubt put in the ground as a hidden marker, just in case the cross and the pile of stones were moved. See Charters of the Abbey of Coupar Angus, ed. D.E. Easson (SHS 1947), ii no.140 (pp.59-60) [Ed.].
NAMES ON THE EDGE: HILLS AND BOUNDARIES
Dr Mary Higham, Clitheroe, Lancashire.
Place-names are usually studied within territorial areas, but valuable insights may be obtained by looking at names ‘on the edge'. Although the Conference paper included discussion on both the *cant and din {1} elements, this summary will deal only with *cant. {2} Dr O.J. Padel, in his Cornish Place-Name Elements {3} discusses this element, noting it is "obscure, perhaps ‘district, region' or ‘edge, border'". It is not a common element, but examples so far examined support the second interpretation. Cant, in Cornwall, for example, lies on the north bank of the Camel estuary, on the southern border of Trigg Hundred. Research further north confirms this.
The identification of boundary points recorded both in the 1307 perambulation of Burton-in-Lonsdale Chace, {4} and linked documents indicate a territory much older than the perambulation-date suggests. A prominent natural feature used as a boundary point in the eastern section of the boundary is Pen-y-Ghent. The name comprises two British place-name elements: pen ‘top, head, end' {5} and *cant, which would suggest this 1307 boundary point, also on the boundary of the former British district of Craven, existed several centuries earlier. The same element found in Cant Beck [‘burn'] and its tributary Blind Cant, {6} close to the north-western boundary, indicates this section was also in existence much earlier. Mere Syke Close, adjacent to Cant Beck, indicates boundary continuity through to the later period with the element mere ‘boundary'.
On the present Lancashire/ Yorkshire boundary (the earlier boundary between Blackburn Hundred and Morley Wapentake) lies Cant Clough, with its headwaters at Harestones, {7} in close proximity to Mereclough. Scotland, too, provides examples: close to the Roxburghshire boundary is Pennygant [NY44 99] surely linguistically identical to Pen-y-Ghent; and the Cant Hills, north of Shotts, Lanarkshire, {8} provides yet another example.
The research cannot be conclusive, covering so few examples, but must help rid the *cant element of some of its obscurity.
Footnotes
{1} The Welsh cognate of Gaelic dùn ‘hill, fort'.
{2} It is hoped that a full version will appear in Nomina 22.
{3} English Place-Name Society vol. lvi/lvii (1985), 37.
{4} Details of the research on this boundary were published in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 66 (1994), 91-105.
{5} Place-Names on maps of Scotland and Wales (Ordnance Survey, 1981), 22.
{6} E. Ekwall, The Place-names of Lancashire (Manchester, 1922), 166, suggests blind as ‘dark, obscure'. I am grateful to Dr Hywel Wyn Owen and John Wilkinson for an alternative blaen (Welsh) ‘edge, end, source of river'.
{7} The adjective hare (‘grey, hoary') in Scottish place-names usually refers to boundary features.
{8} John Wilkinson kindly pointed out this reference.
WHY ISN'T WHERE IT IS, WHERE IT WAS?
The case for Geographical Information.
Donald J Morse, Edinburgh University Data Library.
The term ‘geographic information', or GI, has, over the last few years, evolved to refer to digital information or data that is spatially referenced and is produced for use in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). GIS, in turn, have been defined as ‘computerised systems for the integrated handling of spatially-related data', i.e geographic information, {1} one of the output options of which may be a map - such as Ordnance Survey 1: 50 000 scale Colour Raster, or Strategi, or 1: 1250 scale Land-line Plus; but also choropleth thematic maps based on digitised boundary data (DBD). All of these can be put, and viewed, together in a GIS (although it could be messy!). Basically, a GIS handles spatially-related data as a series of transparent layers. These can be in the form of one or more points; arcs; polygons; or raster. {2} Because we know their spatial relationships, points (for example) can become points in polygons and/or points on rasters, and so on. This means that in using a GIS you can have your cake and eat it – layer by layer, and these layers can be added or removed as required. {3}
GI is, however, as much about socio-economic attributes as topography. Attributes attach to points, arcs, polygons, and raster images. They relate information about the objects which these features represent. E.g. the number of inhabited houses enumerated in Forgandenny in 1871, was 151, while the number of males enumerated in Kinross in the same year was 2,328. Attributes, in other words, enable us to make use of real world spatial objects or abstractions represented in a GIS.
This then raises the question – ‘why isn't where it was, where it is'? The answer being, of course, that we have to use abstract representations of the real world in order to create the further abstracted digital representations held in a GIS. In other words, there are problems; such as inaccurate sources, lack of systematic projection, arbitrary scales, bending, warping, etc. And all of these problems tend to be more pronounced the older the source material. Because of this, the measurement of change over time is usually more intractable than any other problem. Yet all of these problems can be eased with comprehensive information on placenames – their precise location(s) and how they vary from source to source and over time.
When it comes to digitisation, you cannot do better in terms of scale than that used by the original source. But the usefulness of that source is enhanced through digitisation. The geo-referencing necessary in the process provides the ability to relate other, similarly geo-referenced information, not least placenames, using them as key links between sources and over time. Most important, perhaps, is that when a source has been digitised its usefulness, and the possibility of its being made available, to a wider audience is enhanced enormously. In other words, using a digitised version not only helps to preserve the original source, it also enables the creation of ‘new' resources from old, and history to be made more accessible.
Footnotes
{1} Mather, P., 1991, Computer Applications in Geography (Chichester).
{2} ‘Raster' data are pictures or images formed from pixels. A point is a point. Arcs and polygons are vectors (lines) formed by joining two or more points which, in the case of a polygon, denote the boundary of an enclosed area or region.
{3} Note, however, that, given the increasing commodification of data, there are likely to be various copyright owners of the different layers!).
Note: there is a project called The Great Britain Historical GIS Programme based at the Department of Geography, Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London, which has been working for some years to create a computerised record of the changing boundaries of Britain from parish level upwards: a historical Geographical Information System. To date their work has mainly covered the last 150 years but they have recently received a small grant from the Pilgrim Trust to investigate how they could take their work further back in time, possibly as far as 1086. It has so far confined itself to England. For more information see
http://www.geog.qmw.ac.uk/gbhgis
GHOSTLY BATTALIONS:
Angus Place-Names in a Poem by Don Paterson.
Anna Crowe.
14:50: Rosekinghall
(Beeching Memorial Railway,
Forfarshire Division)
The next train on Platform 6 will be the 14:50
Rosekinghall — Gallowshill and Blindwell, calling at:
Fairygreen — Templelands — Stars of Forthneth — Silverwells —
Honeyhole — Bee Cott — Pleasance — Sunnyblink —
Butterglen — Heatheryhaugh — St Bride's Ring — Diltie Moss —
Silvie — Leyshade — Bourtreebush — Little Fithie —
Dusty Drum — Spiral Wood — Wandershiell — Windygates —
Red Roofs — Ark Hill — Egypt — Formal —
Letter — Laverockhall — Windyedge — Catchpenny —
Framedrum — Drumtick — Little Fardle — Packhorse —
Carrot — Clatteringbrigs — Smyrna — Bucklerheads —
Outfield — Jericho — Horn — Roughstones —
Loak — Skitchen — Sturt — Oathlaw —
Wolflaw — Farnought — Drunkendubs — Stronetic —
Ironharrow Well — Goats — Tarbrax — Dameye —
Dummiesholes — Caldhame — Hagmuir — Slug of Auchrannie —
Baldragon — Thorn — Wreaths — Spurn Hill —
Drowndubs — The Bloody Inches — Halfway — Groan,
where the train will divide
(From God's Gift to Women by Don Paterson,
printed with the permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.)
Railways and trains are everywhere in Paterson's work, and at first glance the poem might be read as an elegy for the passing of a rural network. A quick look at the map, however (O.S. Landranger 53 and 54) will show that only a quarter of the place-names are actually on or near a railway, dismantled or in operation. Clearly, Paterson is organizing these names along a different theme, and the Forfarshire Division of the subtitle nudges the reader along a fruitful track. Division suggests a military unit, and the lay-out and shape of the poem resemble that of a village war-memorial. In 14: 50: Rosekinghall Paterson mingles names which mean something with names whose sounds suggest a meaning the words do not normally have. He skilfully juxtaposes names in order to build up further layers of significance. The whole poem has a shape and progression, from the sunny pastoral of the names of the first four lines, hinting at seasonal order and stability, to the chilling names at the end of the poem, as though the shadow of war were creeping across the Forfarshire countryside.
Don Paterson is not the first poet to use place-names without other parts of speech to achieve a semantic effect, and I am grateful to Ian Higgins for drawing my attention to a poem by Louis Aragon, written during the Occupation of France, and published in La Diane Française by Seghers in 1945. In ‘Le Conscrit des Cent Villages', place-names like Sommaisne, Sommeilles and Sommerance inevitably call up the ghost of the Somme; while Angoisse, Adam-les-Passavant, Passefontaine and Treize-Vents suggest, in Ian Higgins' words, the ‘life of a fugitive or a Resistance courier, hunted, afraid, elusive, constantly on the move.' (‘Tradition and Myth in French Resistance Poetry' by Ian Higgins, Forum for Modern Language Studies vol.1 no.1, January 1985, pp. 45-58).
Don Paterson's poem, too, has a strong forward movement, but his place-names hit the ear like the tramp of infantry. After names that hint at bucolic dalliance in l. 4, the first suggestion of war, of military gear being taken off the shelf and cleaned, is neatly conveyed in Dusty Drum. More Drum names are used further on to suggest the sounds of infantry and cavalry on the move. The other three names in line 5 suggest the disorientation and discomfort experienced by the new recruit, while Red Roofs might be the barracks, or else the last, heart-wrenching glimpse of home. Arrival in Egypt is immediately followed by the first casualty, in the ominously juxtaposed Formal/Letter, while the lyrical euphemism of Laverockhall is immediately exposed by Windyedge.
Paterson paints a whole scene by ordering a sequence of names. From Framedrum to Clatteringbrigs we hear the army moving off then being held up by a laden and reluctant horse, and we hear its hooves as it is coaxed over the bridge; in the Outfield to Roughstones sequence the poet relies on his readers' knowledge of an Old Testament story while simply giving the key words, Jericho and Horn. The reader must make the necessary associations between Outfield and Roughstones, and then sees the encircling army and the collapsing walls of the city. While Egypt and Jericho would almost certainly be Biblical names, Smyrna might derive from an actual incident in the First World War. Embedded in the fabric of the poem, such names lend exotic colour, forcing the reader to imagine actual landscapes and colour them in.
Loak - Skitchen - Sturt, which have no obvious meaning, are nevertheless harsh and explosive, and Oathlaw gathers the line into a string of oaths from a hard-pressed soldier. In the last five lines, the names grow ever grimmer, redolent of the cruelty, pointlessness and degeneration of war —Wolflaw - Farnought - Drunkendubs— while a name like Goats conjures up soldiers dying like cattle; dying in shell-holes like Dummiesholes; killed by a sniper's bullet —Slug of Auchrannie; drowning—Drowndubs; crawling The Bloody Inches, but able only to get Halfway, and die with a Groan. It comes as a shock to remember that these are all names of villages, farms, hills, or other landscape features in Angus, so completely does Paterson shape them into a hellish landscape of the imagination. But then, when a country goes to war, there is scarcely a village that does not afterwards have names of its own to remember.