The place-names of Shropshire

This project will bring to completion a long-term study of Shropshire place-names begun by Dr Margaret Gelling, former President of the English Place-Name Society (EPNS) and one of the subject's leading exponents of the last forty years. Before her death in April 2009, Gelling had published around half the county in five volumes, with a sixth almost complete and now in press. In four further volumes we aim to cover the remainder of the county and to provide a full introduction to the completed survey.

In the process we shall assemble and discuss the evidence for thousands of names of settlements, natural features and landholdings. These names were coined from the early medieval period onwards by those who owned, governed, lived on or worked on the land, and they stand as evidence for the concerns and perceptions of these people, for the languages that they spoke and for a landscape sometimes quite recognisable, sometimes wholly altered.

Place-names can offer a unique insight into aspects of the past which -- because they are so local, so commonplace, or reflect developments at such an early date -- are not recorded in other kinds of documentation. They illuminate well the essentially local and particular, in indicating the former presence of the long-extinct lynx at Lostford, for example, or in identifying the sites of now-drained pools or levelled tumuli. However, place-name evidence can also be used in addressing weightier aspects of social or linguistic history, and in our final introductory volume we shall address a wide range of research questions relating to the linguistic, social and political history of this large division of the western midlands of England. There are questions here about the origins and boundaries of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, about the creation of shires and hundreds, about the variety of agricultural practice across the county (and particularly the extent of the spread of 'open-field' farming), and about the regional development of the English language.

Particular questions surround the relationship in this area between Welsh and English languages. We shall devote a special study to the extensive evidence for the Welsh language in Shropshire, seeking to place it within a context of what is known of the linguistic border from north to south throughout the middle ages and modern periods. Other large research questions are then directly related to this one: how far, for instance, does the full evidence support Gelling's suggestion that many of the English place-names of western Shropshire may have been coined by Mercian administrators, over the heads of a largely Welsh-speaking population?

Gelling's work was based on a substantial collection of historic place-name forms largely assembled over many years by local Shropshire volunteers. This collection has now passed to the Institute for Name-Studies in Nottingham where we can draw on established resources and experience to carry out the necessary tasks of organising, analysing and interpreting the material. For the Welsh element of the work we are able to draw on the resources of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth.

The research will be made widely available to the scholarly community, and others, in the form of four EPNS volumes, taking their place in a series which is an established and familiar resource to a wide range of scholars from many disciplines across medieval and modern periods, including political, social, and economic historians, linguists, archaeologists and historical geographers. The research will not only be cited by many scholars, but also developed, and used as a basis for further research. In addition, the interest of the subject, and its relevance to so many historical topics, will be conveyed to the Shropshire community by means of an exhibition and a series of talks in the county.

1. Beneficiaries of our research: who and how

Our research into England's place-names is demonstrably of interest to people outside academia:

a) The amateur onomasts, historians, archaeologists, and local enthusiasts who make use of the EPNS survey volumes, and the Institute's web-resources (particularly the AHRC-funded Key to English Place-Names, newly launched with a Google Maps interface in January 2012) and outreach talks, for their own research, interest, and pleasure. Members of the Institute have been invited to give over a hundred talks to local historical and archaeological societies throughout England since 2000, reporting findings, activities, and resources. These talks often generate subsequent queries and indeed collections of material from audience members; Institute staff are happy to provide answers and advice. In turn, the material is usually incorporated into our archives. Thus it is a two-way process of benefit to all parties.

b) The wider public, who enjoy finding out about their local nomenclature. This interest is clearly evidenced by requests from the local and national media for interviews, contributions, and outreach material (the Impact Plan includes further details of our past record in this area).

This interest can be harnessed to benefit

c) library and information service providers (see below), through increased footfall and an increased public awareness of the local interest resources on offer (books, databases and other IT resources, talks, and courses), and an increase in staff expertise in the areas of onomastic and linguistic research.

2. Increasing the likelihood of impact

to audience (a). Dr Baker will offer two talks to the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society, outlining not only the project's findings and points of special interest, but also the new resources available. Talks delivered outside Shropshire, while perhaps not directly addressing the research, will publicise it. The Institute hosts the Cameron lecture, which attracts a capacity mixed audience of academics and non-academics (Margaret Gelling herself delivered the inaugural lecture); details on the Shropshire research and resources growing out of the Shropshire research will also be publicised there.

to audience (b). In order to maximise impact we envisage activities which will attract (i) those who are already aware that they might find place-names and local history fascinating, and (ii) those who are not:

(i) We propose to mount a travelling exhibition on Shropshire's place-names, including photographs and relevant documents (originals and copies), with commentary and booklet. The exhibition will spend six months each in Oswestry Library, Ludlow Library, and Shropshire Archives (Shrewsbury), thus achieving good county coverage. It will be opened in each place with a fully illustrated public lecture, with Parsons and Watt speaking in Oswestry, Cavill and Baker speaking in Ludlow, and Carroll and Baker speaking in Shrewsbury. We have the enthusiastic support of Mary McKenzie, the County Archivist, and James Anthony-Edwards, Head of Libraries and Information within Shropshire. During our visits, we will also provide guidance on place-name resources to audience c, the library and archive staff.

(ii) We have proposed to Vanessa Hodgson, the features supervisor of the Shropshire Star, a series of short features on particularly interesting examples of local place-names. The Star, an evening paper, has six editions daily, is published six days a week, and has an average issue readership of 223,000 adults. The articles will be timed to coincide with the exhibitions, and should increase the number of visitors.