Here we take a hope-filled look at an example of toponymic nomenclature in the North East of England. That’s a very fancy and ‘make me sound clever’ way of describing a system of geographical names in a particular locality.
One thing that often strikes me about topographical names in North East England is how distinct they are within England and how often they share features with lowland Scotland and particularly the Scottish Borders. There are several examples of identical or similar terminologies that transcend the border and hopefully we will look at some more of these in future posts. ‘Hopeful’ is a good word because it is always good to start with some hope and this post is certainly filled with ‘hopes’.
As an element of place-names in Britain, ‘hope’ comes from an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) term ‘Hop’ for a valley and is a term that survives predominantly in the uplands of Northumberland, County Durham and the border counties of Scotland. In Scotland they are especially prominent within the catchment area of the River Tweed and disappear gradually in Dumfriesshire. Further north where the Tweed meets the catchment of the River Clyde, the hopes disappear instantly. In Scotland ‘hopes’ seem to be associated with a region that formed part of Anglian Northumbria until the early eleventh century.
In these regions of hope (Northumberland, Durham and the Scottish Borders) ‘hope’ usually indicates a small ravine hosting a tributary ‘side valley’ which adjoins a larger dale or valley. The term ‘hope’ is also often applied to the grazing land within these side valleys and interestingly we may find hopes named Winterhope and Summerhope, presumably associated with movements of livestock.
The name of each Hope is usually assigned to the name of a stream that is almost always termed a ‘burn’ within the region. At the southern extremity of this region of hopes is Teesdale, at the edge of County Durham. Here we find Great Eggleshope; Little Eggleshope and Hudeshope near Middleton-in-Teesdale, that are exceptions to the ‘hope-burn’ rule, as these three valleys are formed by streams called ‘becks’ rather than burns. South of the River Tees into Yorkshire, where the Viking term ‘beck’ takes over from the Old English term ‘burn’, the word ‘hope’ disappears altogether as a term for a valley.
In addition to the simple map you see above we have created a more detailed Google Earth map highlighting valleys called ‘hopes’ in Britain with each of the hopes identified, labelled and precisely pinpointed. To explore this map visit the short link at ‘Hope as a term for valley’ (Google Earth map)
We extracted the data for this Google Earth map from the Gazetteer of British Place Names at gazetteer.org.uk and our map of hopes is based on this data. The Gazetteer of British Place Names data is a fantastic open source resource and is very extensive and detailed (with more than a quarter of a million entries) but is not perfect.
I have filtered the data to only include features including the term ‘hope’ that are specifically categorised in the data as ‘valleys’ and I note it has missed some valleys, including the beautiful valley of the Hedleyhope Burn just west of Durham City. Another missing hope valley is the famous hope Killhope Burn in Weardale. Killhope and Hedleyhope are listed in the data as places but not as valleys. Another interesting omission is Sweethope Lough in Northumberland as that is of course categorised as a lake.
Interestingly, a small handful of outlying valleys identified in the data on this map are in Derbyshire and the Welsh border counties of England. There are four valleys listed in these particular areas with ‘hope’ in their names, two of which are called Hope Valley and two are called Hope Dale. It is interesting that the additional clarification of ‘valley’ and ‘dale’ have been added to the word ‘Hope’ suggesting that the original meaning of ‘hope’ was long forgotten in these regions. Hope Bottom in Sussex is another extreme outlier on the map. Both ‘bottom’ and ‘hope’ in this name are believed to refer to the valley of the chalk stream here.
We should note that there are handfuls of place-names containing the element ‘hope’ as an artefact. A small number of examples can be found in the counties bordering Wales. They include the village of Fownhope in Herefordshire and nearby Woolhope but the term ‘hope’ has not generally survived in that region as a term for a valley.
Some places may contain the word ‘hope’ in disguise through modification of spelling. A good example of this is Old Cassop near Durham City named from the beautiful Cassop Vale, which means ‘valley of the wild cat’ where hope has been shortened to ‘op’. Other clipped forms of ‘hope’ occur in the names of Glossop in Derbyshire and Bacup in Lancashire
The village of Staindrop near Raby Castle in County Durham is also described by place-name experts as a hope (stoney-hope) from a modification of the word ‘hope’. Interestingly, Staindrop which is situated in a valley called Langleydale, has also sometimes been historically interpreted as ‘Stainthorpe’. The present form ‘Staindrop’ has a remarkable similarity to several places in Denmark called Stenderup (stone village). In England, the Danish element ‘derup’ meaning farm or ‘village’ occurs as ‘thorpe’ in Viking settled areas and it is perhaps worth noting that Staindrop and Raby have a strong association with the famed eleventh century Danish king of England, Cnut, who owned the land there.
The prominent rocky hills of Great Standrop and Little Standrop in the Cheviots in Northumberland, incidentally have a very different origin to Staindrop in County Durham. Here Standrop literally refers to the ‘drop’ of the cliffs but we have strayed a little way from the subject of ‘hope’. Not far from the Standrop hills is Hedgehope Hill, the second highest hill in the Cheviot range after The Cheviot itself. Hedgehope is one of a number of hills that adopt the word hope from neighbouring valleys and the stunning Harthope Valley borders this hill.
As mentioned, only valleys containing the word ‘hope’ have been included on our Google Earth map. The map does not include the names of villages, towns, hills, woodlands, forests or other features that might include the word ‘hope’ although these features often derive from the term ‘hope’ meaning valley and are much more widespread in England, well beyond Northumberland and Durham.
Some of the ‘hope’ names on this Google Earth map may also include an additional term for a valley such as ‘Dean’ (or dene) which is usually a wooded valley we might also find hope used in conjunction with the Northumbrian word ‘cleugh’ or Scots word ‘cleuch’. These are from a word meaning ‘ravine’ that usually occurs as ‘clough’ in other parts of northern England. We may take a look at this element in a future post.
