The concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names

About this book

This dictionary, for obvious reasons, cannot lay claim to completeness. It would be an impossible task to deal with English place-names in one volume. The principle has been to include what may be called the chief English place-names. The dictionary embraces names of the country, of the counties, and other important divisions (as craven, kesteven, lindsey), towns (except those of late origin), parishes, villages, some names of estates and hamlets, or even farms, whose names are old and etymologically interesting, rivers, lakes — also names of capes, hills, bays for which early material is available. Names no longer in real use, have been omitted. The material includes most of the names listed in Bartholomew’s Gazetteer, except for those that belong to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.