Talk:Amber in British place names

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I think that the German name for amber is Bernstein rather than Brandstein (fire stone). It is true that amber is a sort of stone which can be burnt but so is coal or jet or tar shale. (RJP 13:48, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC))

The German name for amber is Bernstein, but the name has been derived and is equivalent to "börnstone" or "burnstone", translated: "burning stone". The difference between amber and coal is the intensity of the fire. Amber cannot be set afire like coal, it burns more or less like a candle.

The following lines do contain some details to the Burnhams and amber trading:

Quotations from:

The Shell Guide to Britain

Copyright: Shell-Mex and B.P. Limited, 1964 and 1969

SBN number 7181 4029 X

"Burnhams, The. Domesday Book notes seven Burnhams within a radius of two miles, all 'by sea' and all with churches, three of which have disappeared, while the sea has receded beyond the marches. Of these attractive villages, B. Thorpe (250) is notable as Nelson's birthplace (church restored in 1890 as memorial); B. Overy (540) (Norman church tower, with Jacobean cupola) is a good point from which to visit Scolt Head, with its bird sanctuary; B. Norton, Norman font, round flint tower and six-sided, painted pulpit (1450); B. Deepdale, Saxon tower and an exceptional carved Norman font. 2 m. S of B. Market (1,160), North Creake church has the twelve Apostles as well as splendid angels in the roof.

(End quotations from The Shell Guide to Britain).

The Burnhams seem to be amber trading towns for the following reasons:

• the location of the Burnhams at Brancaster Bay between Cromer and the Humber mouth
• the early density of at least five villages with an attribute "burn" in their names, indicating a wealthy area with richness by an unknown source.
• the precise four locations of amber trading in Britain in the article: "Das Gold des Nordens", by Karl Jülicher, Periodical Pan, April 1982)
• equivalent name giving systems elsewhere, eg. in Germany (near Hamburg and at the Brennerpass)

Some details have been derived from lists with old names (ORBIS LATINUS online) [[1]] in which eg. Newcastle on Tyne is named "Brememium".

These lists however do not contain any statements to amber trading and the article is a single source article. If Wikipedia does not allow single source articles, the contribution will have to be dropped. Alternatively we may transfer the single source contribution to the discussion page.

Johannes.Richter 12:46, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My difficulty with the Norfolk Burnhams as having had their name from amber trading is that there is a much more obvious source for their name. A burn is an Old English name for a spring or the stream flowing from it. This is a name which tends to be found in northern English and its southern form is Bourn. There are several bournes in Berkshire and Hampshire while burns are common in Northumberland and southern Scotland. It is therefore easy to find the meaning of Burnham in spring homestead or stream homestead. This is doubly so when running past this group of Burnhams there is a stream called River Burn. This ham place name element is typically Anglo-Saxon. Thorp on the other hand, is in an eastern English context, typically Danish. In Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, there are many examples of places called so and so thorpe. It is cognate with the German Dorf or the Dutch dorp.

A thorp was an outlying settlement of a village. To judge by the distribution of thorps in England, the Danish settlers often set up new settlements separately from the old. This may be because the Anglo-Saxons had been fearful of living in isolated homesteads but the Danes were not.

Working backwards in the likely chronology; Overy Staithe looks relatively modern. It lies on Burnham harbour but not at the head of the creek. A Staithe is a Scandinavian word for a shore or, in more modern use, a wharf with cognates in other Germanic languages (compare the poetical German gestade). The name is likely to date from the tenth century or later. Clearly it appears to have had its name from its being associated with Burnham Overy. That in turn is 'Burnham across the river'. For a discussion of ea as meaning river see the Wiki article Bourne Eau.

Burnham Thorpe is as we have discussed, after the Danish settlement had begun, very likely after 1014-16 when Swein and Knut had been doing their empire-building not so far away from here, between Lincolnshire and Essex.

Burnham Westgate is on the road leading roughly westwards out of Burnham Market. Gate is an anglicised form of a Danish word for street, gad (the street is gadet. Therefore, under its present name, at least, it is relatively late.

Each of Burnham Norton and Burnham Sutton takes its name from its geographical position respectively north and south of some reference point. In this case, that is clearly Burnham Market since each is in its appropriate geographical relationship with that place. These are Anglo-Saxon names.

Finally, there is Burnham Deepdale. For land to have been called 'deep', it was low-lying. Compare the Deeping names around Deeping Fen in south Lincolnshire (Market Deeping, Deeping St. James, Deeping St. Nicholas and West Deeping). In The case of Burnham Deepdale, we have Deepdale Marsh. A dale is in Yorkshire, a fairly deep valley. In other places like Saxondale in Nottinghamshire or Billinghay Dales in Lincolnshire, it is land which has been allocated to someone at some time. It was a land allotment. The word dale is related to dole. Thus Burnham Deepdale was the outpost of Burnham which was by the low-lying allotment of land.

Originally, they will all have been on the same estate but some have since become parishes in their own right. Burnham Deepdale has been taken over by Brancaster parish.

Here we come to Brancaster. Caster is one of the forms in which the Latin castra comes down to us having been filtered through Anglo-Saxon. In origin, it is the plural of castrum but it had come to be regarded as a single fortress. It is one of the forts of the Saxon Shore; established fairly late in the Roman period of government in Britain. The Latin name which comes down to us is Branodunum. Note that it is in Britain at this stage. This part of the country did not become England until after the Roman government had given up its attempt to keep the Angles out. Since it was a defence against the Angles, the use of Anglish in naming it Branodunum is not likely. Indeed, the dunum part of the name looks very Brythonic. In other words the name belongs to the people whom the Romans governed here and whom the Anglo-Saxons were to displace, at least partially. If the second half of Branodunum was Brythonic, it may be sensible to look firstly there for the first half. The most likely-seeming origin lies in the contemporary (that is from that time) equivalent of the main descendant language, modern Welsh. In the modern language, we find brân which means one kind or another of crow, depending on how the word is qualified. In Cornish and Breton, other of the descendant Brythonic languages, the essentially same word comes through. It looks therefore, as though Brancaster is named from the corvids which roosted there and flew in the lee of its walls rather than from any Bernstein trade and that the Burnhams took their name from the burn which flowed among them as many other Burnxxxx names in England and more commonly, in Scotland did.

I see no reference to amber in the Shell Guide quotation.

Newcastle on Tyne was Pons Aelius. The two Roman stations between there and the sea were Segedunum and Arbeia. Bremenium is now called High Rochester and stands at an altitude of about 215 metres and well away from the sea. (Ordnance Survey) - Alles gute (RJP 23:45, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC))

Thank you for so many arguments in search for the Burnham case.

Johannes.Richter 05:02, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)