Bristol

Satellite photo of Bristol

Each side of this map is about 10 miles long.

Present day Bristol is a conglomeration of the many villages and hamlets that used to surround the original city and have since been swallowed up by it. Usually, but not always, all that has survived are the names of these villages. Hence people still talk of Brislington and Clifton villages.

Incidentally, do you know the difference between a village and a hamlet?

(The answer is at the bottom of the page)

What the place names mean

Britain was invaded many times over the centuries. Up until 500 BC our Iron Age ancestors lived in isolation, then the Celts from mainland Europe arrived. The Romans arrived in 55 BC and were here for around 500 years. As the Roman Empire started to collapse they withdrew from Britain and by 450 AD the Angles and Saxons, from what is now Germany, were here to stay. In the 9th Century the Vikings and Danes from Scandinavia thought that Britain might be a nice place to live and invaded. In 1066 the Normans from France invaded and King Harold got an eyefull.

Harold gets his - from the Bayeaux Tapestry
I spy with my little eye, something beginning with the letter A...

For a race that is very proud of being "English" or "British" we seem to have quite a bit of mixed blood.

The derivation and meaning of some of the placenames seems to be a little uncertain. Where I have found alternative meanings then both (or more) are given. Most of the names are Anglo-Saxon in origin i.e. in common usage before about 1100 AD.

In April 2005, I got an email from Luke Rowlands who clarified the languages in use at various times. At the time of the coming of the Romans, the population in the Bristol area - and over most of England - spoke a form of Brythonic (Welsh) - this population remained until the invasion of the Saxons who brought their Germanic language with them - English. Having never heard of Brythonic, I looked it up. Wikipedia says that "A few British survivals are thought to be largely or wholly Brythonic in origin: some place-names (bre-, bal-, and -dun for hills, carr for a high rocky place, coomb for a small deep valley); domestic words (hubbub, iron, peat, bucket, crock, noggin, gob, nook); and folk-names for badgers (brock) and their burrows (set)."

Bristol ~ Old English 'Brycgstow'. Bridge and meeting place, also the place of the bridge.

Avon ~ Celtic for river, so our River Avon is really River River.

Some of the areas and neighbourhoods arund Bristol are very poorly defined as they are sometimes just local names. Some are much bigger than others, with some just being just a couple of roads. As Bristol expanded and absorbed the surrounding villages many of the lacal features the ywere named for have gone. Some places were named after people, and the lives of those are lost to history.

Torpenhow Hill

When I originally wrote this page there was something in the back of my mind that I meant to add. It was about a place name that in the various languages which make up modern English meant hill hill hill hill. Rewriting this in 2009 I thought I'd do a little more research. In his 1952 book "The Story of English", Mario Pei wrote that there is a ridge near Plymouth, England, called Torpenhow Hill. This name consists of the Saxon TOR, the Celtic PEN, the Scandinavian HAUGR (later transposed into HOW), and the Middle English HILL, all four of them meaning "hill". Hence, the modern name of the ridge is actually "Hillhillhill Hill". Unfortunately, there is no such place and this text has now been debunked.

Bredon Hill in Worcestershire does mean hill hill hill. BRE is of Celtic origin, and DON is Old English. Another place that means hill hill hill is Pendle Hill in Lancashire. The original name of the hill is Pennul or Penhul. PEN is Cumbric and HYLL is Old English.

The closest to these I can find in the west of England around Bristol is Churchill. Although "church" in most place names actually does refer to a church, in this case the name is a deriviative of CRUG or CHEECH, both of which are Old English names for hill. So Churchill is hill hill.

Another place near Bristol is Minehead, which means headland headland. Mine is derived from the Welsh MAEN which means headland and head is a derivative of the English headland.

Sources and Resources

31 Brsitol Place Names and What They Mean - Bristol 24/7
Britain's Bayeux Tapestry - Reading Museum
Brittonic languages - Wikipedia
Category:Areas of Bristol - Wikipedia
List of electoral wards in Bristol - Wikipedia
Place names in Avon and the southwest: A guide to current sources - by Jennifer Scherr, Avon Past, Autumn 1980
Subdivisions of Bristol - Wikipedia
The Building of Shirehampton Public Hall by Ralph Hack - Internet Archive
The debunking of Torpenhow Hill - The Free Library
The debunking of Torpenhow Hill - Word Ways