Place-Names of Great Britain and Ireland

The names of our towns and villages often provide insights into their origins and history. The problem is that the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans have all left their mark on the place-names of these islands and the mingling of their languages and the linguistic changes over the centuries have often obscured the original roots and led to misinterpretation. This work by John Field unravels these mysteries. It shows how a linguistic analysis of place-names can contribute to our understanding of the past, whether of a city, a hamlet or a geographical feature. What emerges is that things are not always what they seem, and that some of the places we thought we knew have interestingly unusual origins. The book is organized in an A-Z dictionary form and annotated to give the precise linguistic origins as well as the meaning of each place-name.