Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Hurrying...

...to St Paul's Cathedral to lead a Catholic History Walk. A friendly group, and we explored some of the City churches,beginning with  the splendidly-named St Vedast-alias-Foster, and going on to St Lawrence Jewry at the Guildhall, and then St Margaret's, Lothbury.  It isn't just a matter of enjoying Wren's architecture....it's also getting the whole sweep of history, from the original foundation of St Paul's at the top of Ludgate Hill, and the growth and changes of the City over the centuries...

One thing which is important to grasp is about names. People tend to think that a place-name was somehow invented at a set time, by the local Borough Council or some such body. But it is not like that in a city like London, in a country as old as ours. Place-names have meanings - no one invented them, they emerged because they describe the place. Thus Catford is where cattle crossed the ford, Westminster is the Minster to the West of London...and the names of the City's ancient gates still echo: Moorgate, Aldgate, Newgate...

"Ham" is the old word for a village - hence Birmingham, Chippenham, Walsingham, Nottingham, Cheltenham...and also Tower Hamlets, and the pleasant village of Ham at Richmond-on-Thames...

And a Minster is where monks lived...hence Upminster, Leominster...

The Saxon (German) word for a stranger - ie one who does not speak a language I understand - is "Welsh". So as the Angles and Saxons swept steadily across Britain from the East (settling in places we still call Sussex, and Essex, and Middlesex), they tended to name the remaining settlements of the (Romano-)British people as places-of-strangers. Hence Wallington in Surrey and Wallingford on the Thames...and indeed Wales...


1 comment:

Malcolm said...

"Gate" usually means "road or urban thoroughfare" rather than "outdoors entrance".