Towns changing names

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exiled
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Re: Towns changing names

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In reverse, any idea what the oldest unchanged name is in the UK? Roma has been its name for three thousand years, Napoli is older but has changed spelling over the years so Roma counts, Napoli doesn't.
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Gareth Thomas »

Tonbridge was originally Tunbridge (note the "u") but despite being the older of the two it changed its spelling to avoid confusion with (Royal) Tunbridge Wells.
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by KeithW »

exiled wrote:In reverse, any idea what the oldest unchanged name is in the UK? Roma has been its name for three thousand years, Napoli is older but has changed spelling over the years so Roma counts, Napoli doesn't.
The trouble with the spelling rule is that until the Romans arrived the tribes of Britannia couldn't write and after they left the various incomers named town according to their whim and language hence Eboracum became Yorvik then York. As late as the 18th century there was no official way of spelling any English word so all bets are off.

The best candidate I have seen is St Albans which was founded just outside Verulanium after the saint around 429. Close second is Winchester which was founded in the late 5th century on the ruins of the old Roman Fort Venta which had started as the trading settlement of Venta Belgarum late in the 4th century when it became a major defense point as Imperial power declined. Its Old English name of Wintan-ceastre was a translation from the latin for Fort Venta. Castrum become ceastre and Venta morphed into Wintan.
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Andy33gmail »

Big Nick wrote:
rileyrob wrote:My home town of Burnham became Burnham-on-Sea after a vote by the town council in, I think, 1916. Weston added the -super-Mare at a similar time I think.
Presumably to make clear they are not the Essex town of Burnham-on-Crouch. This nearly caught my Dad out when booking train tickets to visit my Gran in her nursing home. When he queried the very short journey time from Essex to Somerset the truth was realised!
It *did* catch me out once. I bought a train ticket to "Burnham On C." which I expected to be valid to "Burnham-On-Sea" (Highbridge)
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by trickstat »

Andy33gmail wrote:
Big Nick wrote:
rileyrob wrote:My home town of Burnham became Burnham-on-Sea after a vote by the town council in, I think, 1916. Weston added the -super-Mare at a similar time I think.
Presumably to make clear they are not the Essex town of Burnham-on-Crouch. This nearly caught my Dad out when booking train tickets to visit my Gran in her nursing home. When he queried the very short journey time from Essex to Somerset the truth was realised!
It *did* catch me out once. I bought a train ticket to "Burnham On C." which I expected to be valid to "Burnham-On-Sea" (Highbridge)
There is also a railway station called just Burnham that takes its name from the large village of Burnham just outside Slough. This also gives it name to the woodlands called Burnham Beeches.

Despite living my whole life nearer to the other two places, it is Burnham-On-Sea that I think of first if I hear "Burnham" without any other context. This is because I went on holiday there a number of times as a child.
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by rileyrob »

trickstat wrote:Despite living my whole life nearer to the other two places, it is Burnham-On-Sea that I think of first if I hear "Burnham" without any other context. This is because I went on holiday there a number of times as a child.
You poor soul, you have my sympathy :D Mind, you I went on holiday to Hertfordshire several times (to see my Grandparents), so not every holiday destination is exotic!!
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Johnathan404 »

trickstat wrote:Despite living my whole life nearer to the other two places, it is Burnham-On-Sea that I think of first if I hear "Burnham" without any other context. This is because I went on holiday there a number of times as a child.
I worked for a company with operations in Burnham-on-Sea and Burnham (Slough) and would always take the map to Somerset as soon as an enquiry came in about Burnham.

Don't get me started on Weston...
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Ambosc79 »

KeithW wrote:
exiled wrote:In reverse, any idea what the oldest unchanged name is in the UK? Roma has been its name for three thousand years, Napoli is older but has changed spelling over the years so Roma counts, Napoli doesn't.
The trouble with the spelling rule is that until the Romans arrived the tribes of Britannia couldn't write and after they left the various incomers named town according to their whim and language hence Eboracum became Yorvik then York. As late as the 18th century there was no official way of spelling any English word so all bets are off.

The best candidate I have seen is St Albans which was founded just outside Verulanium after the saint around 429. Close second is Winchester which was founded in the late 5th century on the ruins of the old Roman Fort Venta which had started as the trading settlement of Venta Belgarum late in the 4th century when it became a major defense point as Imperial power declined. Its Old English name of Wintan-ceastre was a translation from the latin for Fort Venta. Castrum become ceastre and Venta morphed into Wintan.
A surprising one this: Penkridge (Staffs) was recorded as "Pennocrucium" by the Romans (first mention is in the 2nd century), from words ancestral to Welsh "pen" and "crug", was adopted into Old English as "Pencric", already with virtually the same pronunciation as today. It has barely changed for over 1500 years.
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Re: Towns changing names

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Ambosc79 wrote:
KeithW wrote:
exiled wrote:In reverse, any idea what the oldest unchanged name is in the UK? Roma has been its name for three thousand years, Napoli is older but has changed spelling over the years so Roma counts, Napoli doesn't.
The trouble with the spelling rule is that until the Romans arrived the tribes of Britannia couldn't write and after they left the various incomers named town according to their whim and language hence Eboracum became Yorvik then York. As late as the 18th century there was no official way of spelling any English word so all bets are off.

The best candidate I have seen is St Albans which was founded just outside Verulanium after the saint around 429. Close second is Winchester which was founded in the late 5th century on the ruins of the old Roman Fort Venta which had started as the trading settlement of Venta Belgarum late in the 4th century when it became a major defense point as Imperial power declined. Its Old English name of Wintan-ceastre was a translation from the latin for Fort Venta. Castrum become ceastre and Venta morphed into Wintan.
A surprising one this: Penkridge (Staffs) was recorded as "Pennocrucium" by the Romans (first mention is in the 2nd century), from words ancestral to Welsh "pen" and "crug", was adopted into Old English as "Pencric", already with virtually the same pronunciation as today. It has barely changed for over 1500 years.
Hence as Keith pointed out the spelling rule. My guess would be somewhere like Bangor in Gwynedd, where it is a phonetic name with the orthography the same in English and Welsh.
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Bertiebus »

I'm surprised none of the other Scottish correspondents have mentioned the village of Slateford, which was expanded and renamed Edzell in 1818. The existing village of Edzell, by then abandoned, became known as Old Edzell.
FleetlinePhil wrote:And only around 50 miles to the North of there is Dalry in North Ayrshire. Perhaps the locals there should refer to it as The Real Town of Dalry? :)
Ever been there? It's a real something, all right :o
Isleworth1961 wrote:People from Stevenage or Hitchin would think I was a pretentious **** if I said it straight-faced.
I know someone who says they live in St. Evenage. Ironically, I also happen to know someone who claims to be from St. Reatham in south London.
trickstat wrote:Royal Tunbridge Wells you would tell someone from Tonbridge or Sevenoaks you come from Tunbridge Wells.
More often T. Wells (alternatively Tee-Dub or Thunderbridge, both of which me and my sisters used for decades until I emigrated up the A1. I assume they still do).
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Isleworth1961 »

Bertiebus wrote:I'm surprised none of the other Scottish correspondents have mentioned the village of Slateford, which was expanded and renamed Edzell in 1818. The existing village of Edzell, by then abandoned, became known as Old Edzell.
FleetlinePhil wrote:And only around 50 miles to the North of there is Dalry in North Ayrshire. Perhaps the locals there should refer to it as The Real Town of Dalry? :)
Ever been there? It's a real something, all right :o
Isleworth1961 wrote:People from Stevenage or Hitchin would think I was a pretentious **** if I said it straight-faced.

I know someone who says they live in St. Evenage. Ironically, I also happen to know someone who claims to be from St. Reatham in south London.
trickstat wrote:Royal Tunbridge Wells you would tell someone from Tonbridge or Sevenoaks you come from Tunbridge Wells.
More often T. Wells (alternatively Tee-Dub or Thunderbridge, both of which me and my sisters used for decades until I emigrated up the A1. I assume they still do).
I don't know how you managed to quote me on this, but I've never ever written anything about Stevenage or Hitchin!
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by trickstat »

Isleworth1961 wrote:
Bertiebus wrote:I'm surprised none of the other Scottish correspondents have mentioned the village of Slateford, which was expanded and renamed Edzell in 1818. The existing village of Edzell, by then abandoned, became known as Old Edzell.
FleetlinePhil wrote:And only around 50 miles to the North of there is Dalry in North Ayrshire. Perhaps the locals there should refer to it as The Real Town of Dalry? :)
Ever been there? It's a real something, all right :o
Isleworth1961 wrote:People from Stevenage or Hitchin would think I was a pretentious **** if I said it straight-faced.

I know someone who says they live in St. Evenage. Ironically, I also happen to know someone who claims to be from St. Reatham in south London.
trickstat wrote:Royal Tunbridge Wells you would tell someone from Tonbridge or Sevenoaks you come from Tunbridge Wells.
More often T. Wells (alternatively Tee-Dub or Thunderbridge, both of which me and my sisters used for decades until I emigrated up the A1. I assume they still do).
I don't know how you managed to quote me on this, but I've never ever written anything about Stevenage or Hitchin!
Having lived all my life so far in the area, I was searching your posts to see what you'd said!
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by trickstat »

Bertiebus wrote: I know someone who says they live in St. Evenage. Ironically, I also happen to know someone who claims to be from St. Reatham in south London.
Quite a lot of people say St. Evenage but in my experience only as a kind of in joke.
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Halmyre »

trickstat wrote:
Bertiebus wrote: I know someone who says they live in St. Evenage. Ironically, I also happen to know someone who claims to be from St. Reatham in south London.
Quite a lot of people say St. Evenage but in my experience only as a kind of in joke.
Once, when researching my family history, I found a link to a distant relative who'd lived in St. Ewarton in Ayrshire. Took me ages to figure out (that splintering crash is the sound of a penny dropping, as Humphrey Lyttleton once said on ISIHAC). Even more embarrassing is that some present day relatives actually live in Stewarton...
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Piatkow »

KeithW wrote: Close second is Winchester which was founded in the late 5th century on the ruins of the old Roman Fort Venta which had started as the trading settlement of Venta Belgarum late in the 4th century when it became a major defense point as Imperial power declined. Its Old English name of Wintan-ceastre was a translation from the latin for Fort Venta. Castrum become ceastre and Venta morphed into Wintan.
And Caerwent (Venta Silurum) has exactly the same derivation only in Welsh.
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by FleetlinePhil »

Bertiebus wrote:
FleetlinePhil wrote:And only around 50 miles to the North of there is Dalry in North Ayrshire. Perhaps the locals there should refer to it as The Real Town of Dalry? :)
Ever been there? It's a real something, all right :o
Agreed! We passed through on the bus once when on holiday in Largs - 1999 I guess. No, we didn't stop. Nor did we stop at Lochwinnoch, our intended destination, as the bus unexpectedly burned through on the A737 rather than go through the village. :censored: Still, at least we had a look at Johnstone before getting the bus back to Lochwinnoch.
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Cian »

The attempt at forced Gaelicisation of town names mentioned many many posts ago has lead to one straggler that still turns up with the Irish-only name a fair bit - Bagnalstown is still called Muine Bheag by just about enough people for it to be still used.

Newbridge (An Droichead Nua), Kells (Ceannanas Mor), Charleville (Rath Luirc), Navan (An Uaimh) and some others I can't remember now turned up on the school-grade atlases with their never used Irish names until the late 1990s.

This is ignoring the Gaeltacht area towns, most of which are either solely called by the 'deleted' English version, and some of which were never called by the English version at all - Casla in Galway was legally 'Costello' in English and nobody has ever used that. Some of the Irish versions are so incomprehensible that only locals even know the Irish version - Dungloe as Clochain Liath, Recess as Sraith Salach.

There's another case of a swap between an English name, an anglicised Irish name and back to the English name - Edgeworthstown was changed to Mostrim then back to Edgesworthstown; and was extensively called Mostrim until fairly recently (from Meathas Troim). The local GAA team still uses Mostrim and its maybe only 15 years since the railway station was changed.
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Re: Towns changing names

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Steven wrote:
Robert Kilcoyne wrote:
Chris Bertram wrote: You can add to that that Chelsea's ground, Stamford Bridge, is in Hammersmith and Fulham rather than Kensington and Chelsea - though it is *right* on the boundary. Still, you can't force a club to change its name just because it moves ground.
The most famous example of a club now not playing in the city after which the club takes its name is Manchester United; it was formed originally as Newton Heath (within the city boundary) but moved subsequently to Old Trafford (which is part of Stretford and within the boundary of Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council).
And one that people don't realise - Bolton Wanderers haven't played in Bolton for a number of years. The Reebok stadium is in Horwich, which is a clearly separate town. It is however, in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, but as we all know council areas <> towns.
Forest play in West Bridgford...
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Re: Towns changing names

Post by Chris Bertram »

ForestChav wrote:Forest play in West Bridgford...
So they do. Notts County are the team that play in the city. But didn't Forest originally play at the Forest Recreation Ground just off the Mansfield Road?
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Re: Towns changing names

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Chris Bertram wrote:
ForestChav wrote:Forest play in West Bridgford...
So they do. Notts County are the team that play in the city. But didn't Forest originally play at the Forest Recreation Ground just off the Mansfield Road?
Yes they did, hence the name.
C, E flat and G go into a bar. The barman says "sorry, we don't serve minors". So E flat walks off, leaving C and G to share an open fifth between them.

Never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
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