Dear Readers, as someone who lives in somewhere called ‘East Finchley’ I’ve always been intrigued by the link between place names, and the plants and animals that live there. And it seems that I’m not the only one, as this month’s edition of ‘British Wildlife’ contains a fascinating article by Michael J.Warren about how bird names often pointed to the ecology of an area. Sadly, this is rarely the case nowadays – you might live in a new build on ‘Nightingale Close’ but it’s highly unlikely that it was named because there were nightingales there, and even if there were, you can bet your bottom dollar that they don’t now.
Warren points out that the names of most hamlets, villages and towns in England came from the Middle Ages, with the majority originating from the early period (450-1100 CE). Many of the names came from Old English or Old Norse, with a later scattering of Norman. He gives a compelling list showing the range of place names that come from plants and animals:
Cranbrook (cranes’ brook)
Ackton (Oak estate)
Snailwell
Nettlecombe
Ulgham (nook of owls)
Birch
Musbury (mouse-infested fort)
Troutbeck
Midgley (midge-clearing)
Hawkridge
Rockbeare (rook wood)
Ramsey (island where wild garlic grows)

Wild Garlic
Warren’s article concentrates on birds in place names, and suggests that one reason might be that the names give an indication of what resources there might be in a particular place. Cockshutt in Shropshire, for example, likely means ‘site where woodcock display and can be trapped), while Fulstow in Lincolnshire means ‘place where birds assemble’ (and can presumably be caught at particular times of year).
However, Warren believes that it wasn’t just about harvesting birds, but also about imagination – after all, birds are often not present all year round, and many birds represented in place names are not ones that are likely to be eaten. He mentions:
Finchampstead in Berkshire (the homestead frequented by finches)
Spexhall, Suffolk (woodpecker’s nook)
Dunnockshaw, Lancashire (dunnock copse)
Masongill, Yorkshire (from Old Norse rather than Old English – ‘titmouse ravine’)

Dunnock (not skulking for once)…
Warren makes the point that in the Middle Ages, people were truly ‘parochial’ – people often lived their entire lives in one small area, and would know the geography and ecology of the area intimately. He puts it beautifully here:
‘If a community’s place names reflected what was important to them, somewhere in that scale of what mattered to our ancestors there was room for something as subtle as Dunnock … hedgerow skulking, as delicate as the filigree flight of a charm of Goldfinch….as sudden as the yaffle of a Green Woodpecker….or as small as a tit flock’s weightless, tree-top roving’.
There is something too of the notion of an insider’s perspective on their home, knowledge that can’t be understood or experienced by outsiders. Warren compares this to ‘patch-birding’, where someone will get to know the comings and goings of birds in a small local area, often over decades. I would add a similar feeling from watching the birds and other animals come and go in my garden. But what are we to make of place-names that reference fleeting visitors, such as the cuckoo or the swallow? Warren again gives some wonderful examples:
Cuckfield in Sussex (open land where cuckoos are)
Swallowcliffe in Wiltshire (escarpment frequented by swallows)
Warren speculates that, in the days before we understood migration, it might be thought that seasonal birds were actually bringing the spring and summer with them, and with it the time of fecundity. In the village of Gotham, there was an attempt to actually hedge in a cuckoo, in the hope that summer would continue as long as the bird didn’t leave. But even without such attempts to physically capture the bird, Warren wonders:
‘To capture the Cuckoo, were it possible, would be to somehow distil summer essence:the name, made permanent as an identifier, pinpoints the most life-affirming, life-full moment of a place and keeps it intact and alive, even throughout those months when the bird is absent’
So, what of East Finchley? Finchley literally means ‘woodland clearing where finches are present’ and dates back to the Anglo-Saxon period. East Finchley was once heavily wooded, with ancient woodland such as Coldfall, Cherry Tree and Queen’s Woods all being part of one continuous wood. These days there are still chaffinches and goldfinches in the garden (or ‘fincs’ as our Anglo-Saxon ancestors would have known them). Did our ancestors once scatter crumbs for the birds, or cage them to hear their song?
If you are curious about the place name of your own home and wonder if it relates to a bird species, you can have a look at the Birds and Place website here. Warren has also written a book ‘The Cuckoo’s Lea: The Forgotten History of Birds and Place‘, which would be well worth a look.
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