Observations on Place-names in Renfrewshire
(Metcalfe’s ‘A History of Paisley 600-1908’, pp 450-457 gives an analysis of some place-names in Paisley and Paisley parish).
This is not a comprehensive record of the place-names of the county. Instead, it is a selective assessment of a few name-forms which have particular significance. It is intended as a resource within which others may quarry.
For other areas covered so far in this blog there are two languages which account for most of the surviving place-names. From Lennox, through Cowal, Kintyre, Argyll, the Hebrides, Inverness-shire, Ross-shire and Sutherland the majority of the names are Gaelic, with varying proportions from Old Norse. It is only in parts of Caithness that we find the ratio reversed. Names in modern Scots or English are in a minority. There are a few older names, of rivers, islands etc, which may be pre-Gaelic, but again they are in a small minority. Some of these will be Pictish or British, some may be earlier still.
Renfrewshire is different. Firstly there were historic links with Cumbria and North Wales which mean we have to take into account that linguistic tradition. Secondly there was strong influence from English-language speakers. The last is complicated by the fact that this may have happened in at least two distinct phases; the first from Anglian expansion, the second from Norman intrusion. For those wishing to pursue the Anglian dimension a good starting-point would be the chapter on ‘Early English Names’ in W.F.H. Nicolaisen’s Scottish Place-Names. For the present I am going to duck that and focus instead on English-language names that may have arrived in tow with the Normans in the twelfth century.
In connection with the most ancient tradition, the Cumbric, I have given a tentative listing of names that conceivably derive from ‘-tre’ or ‘-tref’ (a homestead or farmstead). They would all bear further investigation. (See associated file on names in ‘-tre’).
There are certain words which have long been regarded as good indicators of early settlement. So, for example, the Gaelic word ‘achadh’ (field) is a generic element that is often held to indicate early settlements by Dalriadic Scots. By way of contrast the Gaelic ‘baile’ (township or fermtoun) is thought to be a later development. ‘Achadh’ names in Renfrewshire are relatively few in number but often seem to be associated with large farms. Names beginning with ‘baile’ are scarce. In itself this tells us something about the influence of Gaelic in Renfrewshire. (See associated file on names in ‘Ach-, Auch– and Bal-’).
Turning to the settlements of English-language speakers one of the most common generic elements is the ending ‘-tun’ or ‘-ton’ as in the formula ‘so-and-so’s township or fermtoun’. They often have a personal name attached and are ubiquitous in Renfrewshire. (See associated file on names in ‘-ton’).
Another element from Anglo-Saxon that is particularly common in Renfrewshire is ‘-leah’ or ‘-lee’. This was an active place-naming element for centuries, with different nuances of meaning, but here it probably means ‘woodland clearing’. (See associated file on names in ‘-lee’).
A further element I have chosen to log is ‘Rais’ or ‘Wrays’ (variously spelled). It is common in Renfrewshire, but not north-west of the Clyde. The contrast is striking and requires an explanation. One of the difficulties here is that whilst the speaker of modern English might pronounce these two place-names in a very similar fashion they may in fact indicate two quite different names, with different origins – but both from Old Norse. (See associated file on names in ‘Rais’ or ‘Wrays’).
Land-assesssment terms derived from the Norse fiscal system
I am not going to analyse Norse place-names in Renfrewshire except those which have direct land-assessment connotations. We have no references to ‘tirungs’ or ‘ungs’ (i.e. land-ounces, where the ounce is of silver). We have some references to pennylands, which ties Renfrewshire to the Norse fiscal system; of which we have evidence from Galloway up most of the west coast of Scotland. We have one reference to a halfpenny in the form of Halfpenny Burn in Inverkip. We have no references to farthinglands except possibly a single reference to a place called Dafferlie (<dubh-feoirling?, i.e. black farthingland), also in Inverkip.
The pennyland references in Renfrewshire are Dippany and Pennytersal (Kilmacolm), Pennuld (Kilbarchan) and Middle Penny (Erskine). (The documents also tell us of a pennyland in Inverkip). I am doubtful Pennyfern (Inverkip) is a true pennyland name (see Inverkip table). Dippany is on record from the sixteenth century and there are similar place names on the west coast (e.g. Dippen in Saddell parish, Kintyre; Dippin in Clachan parish, Kintyre; Dippin in Glassary). The prefix is sometimes thought to be Gaelic dà (two) and it is certainly true that the word dà-pheighinn stands for the Scots twopence coin. However, in many cases it is more probable that Dippen is for dubh-pheighinn (black pennyland) since we find a similar construction in Feorlindhu (i.e. black farthingland) which is a place-name in Ardnish, Arisaig, Inverness-shire. The colour reference is likely to be in relation to the peaty soil because we find something similar in relation to lochs where the water has a particularly dark colour.
Having made that assertion it should immediately be qualified by stating that context is everything. Where we know a Dippen which has a two pennyland valuation then soil colour probably has nothing to do with it. The Place-Names of Westmoreland, Vol II notes a Tippeny, or two-penny unit, on p 91 (cf p xiii). However, in Renfrewshire, whether the prefix is dà (two) or dubh (black), it is likely to be Gaelic.
Pennuld is more complicated and we have several variations on this name in the documents. The reading I find most persuasive is Pennel which might indicate penny/peighinn plus Norse vollr (field) as the second element. Vollr is a common Norse place-name element and we find it as the suffix in Langal (several examples, including Bute and Moidart), Brawl (Caithness), Crossal (Kintyre), Smerral (Caithness) etc. The meaning in Renfrew would then be ‘penny field’ where the word field might indicate arable land on a rather larger scale than what we think of as a single field. This combination of elements might suggest the name was first coined by a Norse speaker whereas Dippany was likely formed by a Gaelic speaker. Both names probably appeared in the period c. 995 to c. 1065 when the Hiberno-Norse currency was at its most robust.
We also have to account for the fact that pennylands in South-west Scotland may appear a little differently to the Hebrides and Northern Scotland. There was certainly the same Gaelic-Norse mix. But there were also elements of English thrown in, whether stemming from before or after the influx of Normans into the area. A good example is the name for farthing-lands. We have no clear instances of place-names denoting farthing-lands in Renfrewshire. The most likely example is Dafferlie in Inverkip which might indicate a black farthing-land. However, just over the Renfrewshire border into Cunningham Ayrshire, we find a place called Fardens (NS 2166) on the north side of Skelmorlie Glen. There are others in south-west Scotland. It is significant that the name is ‘Fardens’ and not ‘Feoirlinn’ since it suggests that the place-name was either given by, or mediated through, English-speaking people. In RMS VI (2006) 1607 we learn of a place called Blakfardene in Carrick, Ayrshire. Blakfardene (Blackfarthing) is an analogue of Feorlindhu and perhaps a precise analogue of Dafferlie. Blakfardene is from English, Feorlindhu and Dafferlie both look to be from Gaelic – but with the two elements in different order.
Even more intriguingly we do find traces of Feoirlinn-names in the area. They are not common but RMS I Appendix 2, Index A No 1109, Index B No 14 suggests that the name ‘Forling Linach’ was current in Ayrshire in the reign of David II. In other words both English-speakers and Gaelic-speakers in SW Scotland tied their own place-names to the Norse fiscal system.
Names from Anglo-Saxon
The predominant settlement unit in Renfrewshire was the ‘-ton’ or toun. It is clear from both documentary records and maps that not all of these place-names have survived. The name is associated with the settlements of English-speakers and the form is commonly ‘Name + possessive + ton’ as in “Crook’s-ton”, Smith’s-ton’ etc where the name could be a personal name or possibly a professional description. An interesting subset are the three Inglistons in Renfrewshire (literally English-town). I don’t know if these derived from individuals called Inglis (English) or implied a community of English-speakers. We find precisely the same construction in Normandy with ‘Anglesqueville’ which is literally the same and presumably points to an individual or group imported by the Normans.
The point is that we should not underestimate the secondary layer of immigrants who arrived in the train of the Normans. We know about the great families, the Stewarts, the Montgomeries, the Crocs, who arrived in Renfrewshire in the middle of the twelfth century. But with them must have been a host of subordinates and lesser personnel, the squires, the foot-soldiers, the archers the farriers, the armourers, the smiths, the masons, the cooks, the carpenters, most of whose names and activities are lost to history. When the first thirteen monks arrived in Renfrewshire they were brought from Shropshire.
The great families may have been Norman in origin but many had been in England for almost 60 years when David I became King of Scotland. French may have been the language of those at the top of the social order, but English probably served all those on lower rungs of the ladder. Some of the monks may have been English as opposed to Norman. They too, will have brought a bevy of cooks and medical men, gardeners, craftsmen and labourers. There was probably more social churn in Renfrewshire in the twelfth century than happened again until the eighteenth. This was going on in many parts of Lowland Britain during the dynamic changes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was not just within Scotland. There are plenty of examples in Bain’s ‘Calendar’ of Scots emigrating to England and establishing their own families and dynasties there. You will Scotby in Cumbria or the Scott family in Dunwich just as you will find Ingliston by Paisley or Anglesqueville in Normandy.
Another example, of names in –lee, (from leah, Anglo-Saxon, forest-clearing, sometimes meadow) is very common in Renfrewshire. We have dozens of these, particularly in parishes like Cathcart which were once well-wooded. These have long been recognized as an Anglo-Saxon element in Renfrewshire’s toponymy. In fact, in the New Statistical Account for Paisley, written in 1837, there is a long section on these place-names, contributed by William Kerr, surgeon in Paisley. We do not have to agree with all that Mr Kerr says to understand that this feature of the toponymic landscape was drawing attention to itself nearly 200 years ago.
It may be obvious that many of Renfrewshire’s surviving place-names were given by English-speakers but are there any close parallels to Shropshire? After all, this is where the Stewarts came from. If there are, then perhaps this could help date some local place-names. As yet, there has been no comprehensive study of all of Renfrewshire’s place-names of the type that Simon Taylor has completed for Fife. But the English Place-name Society have been working their way through Shropshire and have published nine volumes so far. I have looked at these as well as other place-name surveys for Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Wiltshire.
I cannot pretend to have done an in-depth study of these but a skim through them leaves the clear impression that there was no transplant of Shropshire place-names to Renfrewshire. Yes, there are plenty of interesting comparisons to make. The Caldwell (cold well or spring) in Neilston parish has numerous English namesakes. There is a Stanely in Paisley parish for which we can find parallels in Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Wiltshire. Likewise, there are several Langleys and Coningers to match with those in Lochwinnoch and Paisley.
But names such as these give no sense of a transplanted toponymy. Instead they suggest that English-speakers reacted in a similar way to their natural environment in Renfrewshire as they did in the West Midlands of England. This was not a wholesale transplant of old names to new environments as often seems to be the case in North America. Instead, it was people speaking the same tongue, reacting in a similar way in a new setting. English-speakers coming across a stony clearing in a wood are likely to describe it in a similar fashion, regardless of whether that wood is in Shropshire or Renfrewshire.
Some special cases
Perhaps the most interesting comparisons come from Renfrewshire placenames in ‘Wrays’ or ‘Rais’ and here the parallel is with Cumbria, not Shropshire.The attached file shows how common these place-name forms are in Renfrewshire. But why are they so absent north of the Clyde, even in the northern half of the old Lennox? The contrast is compelling and requires an explanation.
The English Place-name Society has published three volumes on the ‘Place-names of Cumberland’ and two volumes on ‘The Place-names of Westmorland’. These give numerous examples of parallel names in Cumberland and Westmorland. But they fall into two types. There are names which are thought to derive from Old Norse hreysi (a stone cairn) and others from Old Norse vrá (a nook or corner of land).
Here are some examples. (Cumb III = The Place Names of Cumberland, Volume III; similarly West. II = The Place Names of Westmorland, Volume II).
From hreysi (cairn):
West. I p 56 Raismoor, (cairn moor); p 80, Stanrays (stone cairn); p 107 Raisbeck (cairn stream).
West. II p xiii Staynwallerays (stone wall cairn); p 44 Raisbeck and Raisgill (cairn stream and cairn ravine); p 107 high & low Raise (high and low cairn). See also p 161, p 203, p 226, p 264, p 306, p 355.
Cumb. I p 24, pp 178-9; Cumb. II p 317; Cumb. III p 479, p 547.
From vrá (a nook or corner of land):
West. I p 128 Ellenwray; West. II p 297 several examples including Scotwra, also p 309 where it is noted as less common than in Cumberland.
Cumb. II p 336 Rowrah (probably rough nook or corner), p 392 Paddock Wray (toad corner);
Cumb. III p 488 lots of examples and noted as common in field names, p 502 notes distribution pattern.
The above provoke fascinating comparisons with Renfrewshire. So, for example, some Renfrewshire names seem to have retained the ‘v’ from vrá. In the National Library of Scotland Digital Map Library we find a series of estate maps from Houstoun parish which date to c. 1760. On Acc.4394, 9, 10 & 11 we have a farm marked ‘Grief’s Vrea’s’. On Acc.4394, 8 & 12 we find another just called ‘Vrea’. This seems to be a different type of name to that found in ‘Stewart’s Rais’ or ‘Logan’s Rais’ (Paisley parish). In this blog I will do no more than list the names (see attached file) and point out the parallels. A full analysis would require, among other things, a listing of all the ancient cairns in Renfrewshire to see where they may match with surviving names from Old Norse hreysi.
There are two other place-names in Renfrewshire which might benefit from comparison with Cumbria. The first is Barcapel (Mearns). This seems to have replaced an older name of Capelrig which was once a Templar property. Westmorland Volume I, pp 104, 132 and II, p 152, offer three similar names.
The second is King Henry’s Knowe, also in Mearns, which was mapped by Pont as ‘King Haries Know’. This rather enigmatic place-name has a parallel in Cumb. I p 79 ‘King Harry’. The latter can be documented back to 1268 and the editors suggest that the first element is actually for Gaelic ‘ceann’ (head). As in Mearns the name is associated with other features; in the case of Cumberland, ‘moor’, ‘fell end’ and ‘common’. There is plainly more to be learned about King Harry!
There is a third place-name, perhaps the most enigmatic of all, which conceivably takes us back to Shropshire. In Houstoun parish we find the place-name Shovelboard at NS 3869. It is probably the same as Scheippirheid which appears as 1 merkland in RSS II (4627) 1542. It appears in Roy(PC) as Shoolbraids. I know of no other name like it in Renfrewshire, or anywhere to the north and west thereof. In the Place-Names of Shropshire, Volume 9, p 350, there is discussion of Old English scofl-brǣdu (shovel-width, as in a narrow field). See also Cavill, A New Dictionary of English Field-names, under Shovel Broad/School Broad (pp 381/369). I do not know if there is a connection, but it certainly looks possible.
As far as Renfrewshire is concerned, on today’s OS Explorer 341 the name is spelled Shovelboard. In the nineteenth century Ordnance Survey Name Books it appears on p 14 as Shovelbread Dam, vouched for by 3 local authorities, one of whom lived at Shovelbread. It then appears again on p 16, as Shovelbread, Shovelboard and what has been transcribed as Shovelbraid. Shovelbread is attested by two local authorities, both of whom had also appeared on page 14. The spelling Shovelboard was taken from the Valuation Roll while Shovelbraid came from the Voters list. However, I don’t believe this last spelling has been correctly transcribed. What I think it actually says is Shoolbraid. The second element of this place-name seems to have caused much confusion, both in England and in Scotland. The variety of spellings in ‘board, broad or bread’ is well demonstrated by Cavill on p 369.
Although I will leave further discussion at this point there is plenty more toponymic exploring that could be done. I would want to investigate further into Corsley, Brockley, Dubbs, Melin, Gotter and Wart Hill, not to mention the numerous place-names ending in ‘-land’. There is also the matter of ‘yokings’, a land-assessment term we find in Shropshire, Cumberland and Renfrewshire.
Chronology
To invoke a sequence or chronology for these names is much more complex for Renfrewshire than say Skye or Caithness. Instead of three main linguistic heritages we have four: Welsh, Gaelic, Norse and English. What’s more, the English-language tradition arrived much earlier than in most of the Highlands and Hebrides.
Working chronologically we could expect the earliest set of names in Renfrewshire to be Welsh or Cumbric. We then have Anglian, Norse and Gaelic overlays but it would be hard to establish a definitive sequence. It would depend on how resolutely Cumbric the area remained in the centuries after the first Dalriadic invasions of Argyll in the fifth century, or the establishment of any early Anglian colonies. I am not going to attempt to unravel this sequence but it seems likely that Gaelic influence was felt particularly through the church. We have a cluster of ‘kil-‘ names (from Gaelic cille, cell or church) in Renfrewshire which suggests strong influence from Ireland. Kilbarchan, Kilmoluag, Kilmacolm, Killallan, possibly Kilblain, and three dedications to St Bride indicate that the early ecclesiastics of Renfrewshire looked to Ireland for spiritual support.
Then we have Norse dominance of the west coast from about 800 AD to about the mid-twelfth century when they start to be challenged by the new Norman landowners of Renfrewshire. It is significant that Somerled, the great Gaelic-Norse leader of the period, met his death near Inchinnan in Renfrew. Despite his Norse name it may be that many of his supporters were Gaelic-speaking. When we look for Norse elements amongst the place-names of Renfrew we do not meet the ‘bolstadrs’ or ‘byrs’ or ‘steads’ or ‘settrs’ that are so common elsewhere. There are some names that might include Norse settlement terms – such as Pennel – but the toponymic landscape does not have the same feel as Caithness, Sutherland, Skye, Eigg or Kintyre. We have the further difficulty that certain elements – such as the suffix ‘-land’ could as easily be from English as from Old Norse. It could be argued that the absence of Norse settlement terms, plus the presence of a few pennyland names, merely suggests some Norse political overlordship from about the year 995. Renfrewshire was perhaps a mix of peoples, originally Cumbrians from Strathclyde but with infusions of Angles and Dalriadic Scots, who suffered a temporary Norse overlordship along the west coast before succumbing to the Normans in the twelfth century. That subject is much larger than this blog, although place-name studies may help illuminate the process.
As far as the Gaelic element is concerned there is a different feel. One of the basic settlement terms for Gaelic-speakers is achadh (field) and, in Renfrewshire, we do find a number of place-names with this as the first element. What is also significant is that some of these names seem to attach to particularly large farms, suggesting a Gaelic-speaking, landowning, aristocracy. Nevertheless, although there are achadh names they are not nearly as significant as the large number of –ton names.
Another Gaelic settlement term is baile (township) which, it has been suggested, might be a slightly later development in Gaelic areas. Renfrewshire lacks any significant number of names beginning with ‘Bal-‘ which, it could be argued, suggests Gaelic hegemony was short-lived. Balwhearie by Port Glasgow may be relatively modern, Ballageich is probably from bealach (pass) rather than baile. Balgrein (Lochwinnoch) is one robust example, but has the flavour of an exception proving the rule.
Could it be that a period of Norse domination brought a Gaelic-Norse landowning class to Renfrewshire for a period of 150-200 years before their abrupt displacement by the Normans c. 1160? This would explain the presence of pennyland-names, which probably date c.995-1065, as well as the large farms in ‘achadh’. It would also explain the absence of early Norse settlement terms if we think of this Norse control being late rather than early. By then the warlords of the Kingdom of the Isles may often have been speaking in Gaelic.
Offering this synopsis, and the attached place-name files, is not supposed to be any sort of rigorous examination of Renfrewshire’s place-names. But research into land-assessment does throw up a great deal of relevant place-name material, and comparisons of early spellings often reveal better derivations. (Waterstone in Kilbarchan for example is much more likely to come from the personal name Walter than anything to do with water). Renfrewshire has a particularly rich and diverse set of place-names. Within it we can find relics of three different land-assessment systems, davachs, pennylands and merklands. We also have the linguistic trails of Welsh and Cumbrians, of Gaels and Norse, of Anglians, Normans and English-speakers.
See associated files:
Names in ‘-tre’
Names with ‘Ach/Auch’ and ‘Bal-‘
Names in ‘-ton’
Names in ‘-lee’
Names in ‘Rais’ or ‘Wraes’
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