Worcestershire Place Names

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Nearly all English place-names have their root in anglo-saxon the principal exceptions are rivers and hills, which frequently maintain their earlier names (especially large rivers), and then their construction is almost hopeless. On the west side of Severn a few names appear to be of Welsh origin (e. G. Malvern, Mathon, Pendock, Pensax, and should therefore be dealt with by a Welsh scholar. Before commencing my work I was of opinion that the Norsemen had left no permanent traces of their invasions in Worcestershire but I now think it pretty clear they made a settlement in the neighbourhood of Clent and Hagley, probably on one of their raids up Severn. The same thing happened in North Staffordshire, where several place-names and words are clearly of Danish origin. The anglo-saxons appear to have been a homely race, for their place-names have the simplest origins, very different to the Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, whose names largely savour of poetry, sentiment, and history.