The Relative Hills Society (RHSoc) recently invited me to be guest speaker at their annual dinner. My talk lasted for 35 minutes and the text to the basis of this appears below:
Welsh Place-Name Research
Firstly, I would like to thank Rick and RHSoc for inviting me to be guest speaker at your annual dinner. I would also like to express my thanks to Barry for inviting me to accompany members of the Society on the walk to Upper Park earlier today, and also congratulations to Barry for getting permission to do so from Powis Estate. It’s been a very enjoyable day with an excellent meal in good company this evening, and a good walk up Upper Park in good company in lovely weather this afternoon, so I’m afraid for the next 30 minutes or so, it’s going to be all downhill from here!
When Rick contacted me we briefly touched upon the subject matter for my talk and Rick suggested Welsh place-name research. Over the next couple of days I considered this and wondered whether to expand the talk to include how I got into hill bagging, how this evolved into surveying, hill compilation and then place-name research. Every two days or so for the next couple of weeks I wandered around my bungalow speaking to myself, which I’m prone to do anyway, practicing my talk. The first time I did this, I got about ¾ of the way through what I thought I should say, looked at my watch and 55 minutes had expired, I thought everyone would be in the bar waaaay before I had finished! However, I kept practicing and eventually got the talk down to a manageable 30 minutes. But to do so I had to literally whizz through everything. Because of this I thought let’s just pick one topic, I can still briefly mention the hill bagging, surveying and list compilation, but concentrating on one subject will allow time to explain and give detail where necessary, so I’m going to go back to what Rick first suggested and that is Welsh place-name research.
Part One: The fragile nature of language
The context of my talk will relate purely to Welsh hills and how using appropriate names can improve the information within our hill lists. I’m going to split the talk into four parts; the first part concerns itself with the language.
I’d like to take you back to 2004; this is when my dad died. Shortly after his death I started looking into my family history and for the next 18 months conducted extensive family research. I’m sure there are others here tonight that have done likewise. I found it a fascinating subject and learnt so much that I did not know beforehand. One of the things I found was that my great great grandfather as well as speaking English, could also speak Welsh. This was a revelation for me, as although I knew my grandparents; my father’s mother and father lived in Welshpool; the town where I was born and still live, I did not know where my father’s family came from, they could have come from the part of Wales where I still live, or from another part, or in fact from England, Scotland or Ireland, I just did not know.
My great great grandfather married a woman from Shropshire; my great great grandmother, they had eight or nine children as was the average in the mid-1800s. I presume that as their mother could only speak English all the children were brought up speaking just this one language, resulting in Welsh as a language being lost from my family in one generation. This is how fragile language can be.
I’m now going to take this scenario of how fragile language can be and place it firmly in a hill context and take you to the hill range known as Mynydd Epynt, which is positioned just to the south-west of Builth Wells. The highest hill of this range is also known as Mynydd Epynt and as it is listed as a Marilyn, I’m sure many here this evening would have visited it. It can be relatively easily visited from the mountain road that passes from Builth Welsh to Brecon via Upper Chapel. Toward the top of this road is a large parking area, come viewing spot. You can then walk across the public road and scamper up the paved section of road that follows the ridge before veering off to the right to bag the summit, before scampering back down the paved road. I use the word scamper wisely, as the majority of this hill range now has restricted access because in 1939 the Military of Defence (MOD) took this land over. By doing so 54 families were evicted, they had little notice of eviction and little compensation. In the main these families were farmers and Welsh speakers. This resulted in Welsh as a language being lost overnight from the bulk of this hill range and the use of the language being pushed approximately 14 miles further westward. This is how fragile language can be.
Again, the underlying theme to my talk relates to how using an appropriate name for a hill can improve the information within a hill list. By doing so it incorporates the rich heritage of our landscape and this includes the use of the Welsh language, which as just touched upon can be fragile in nature. Using invented names for hills ignores this rich heritage and for an upcoming part of my talk I will concentrate on how some list authors are prone to use invented names for hills. But before that I would like to explain how I got in to Welsh place-name research.
Part Two: Beginning hill bagging, surveying, listing and researching hill names
The second part of my talk will touch upon how I started hill bagging, surveying, hill listing and how this evolved in to place-name research.
I started hill bagging in 1988 and soon bought Terry Marsh’s 600-Metre Summits of Wales guidebook. Within which was a main list and accompanying sub list totalling 222 hills. During the following year of 1989, I set myself the challenge of completing an ascent of all of these hills in the calendar year. I completed this on the 222nd day of the year atop Crib Goch, and by doing so raised £1000 for charity.
In late 1989 Cicerone Press published the first of two books authored by John and Anne Nuttall; The Mountains of England and Wales, Volume 1 Wales. This guidebook listed the 2,000ft mountains of Wales and it led my hill bagging for many years to come. During my 5th round of these hills I was out bagging four or five individual hills, quickly visiting one before driving to the next. My last hill of the day was Moel y Cerrig Duon, which is positioned above Bwlch y Groes; Wales’ second highest public road. As I descended from this hill toward my car which was parked in the large gravelled area beside the top of the road, two people approached the parking area having come down from the main Aran ridge. Walking toward them I noticed a copy of the Nuttall’s Welsh guide in the boot of their car. One of them; Dewi Jones, who until recent years posted on the RHB forum, told me he had found a new hill not in the Nuttalls list. This hill had been surveyed my Dewi, who had drilled a hole in his walking staff at a 1m height to affix a spirit level and devised an ingenious mirror system for horizontal alignment. When reaching the col Dewi placed the bottom of the staff at the designated spot, sited across the spirit level and then walked to where he had sited, before repeating the process. The new hill Dewi had found was subsequently line surveyed by two of his friends; Harold Morris and Tudur Owen. The hill was later confirmed as a new addition to their list by the Nuttall’s and it has now been Trimbled. The Nuttall’s listed this hill by an invented name using a directional component; Cnicht North Top. When making local place-name enquiries two names are given for this hill; Cnicht Bach and Cnichyn, the latter uses a diminutive. All one has to do is ask locally and in all probability an appropriate name will be given for the respective hill. Local enquiry is important and I will come back to this later in my talk.
The encounter with Dewi led directly to me surveying hills, as I wondered if any more new Welsh Nuttalls awaited discovery. I soon contacted a skilled craftsman named Simon Pendrell who coincidentally lived just outside of Croesor at the base of Cnicht. Simon made me two measuring staffs, the last splitting in to four via three brass screw fittings and therefore easily fitting in to a day rucksack. I then made a list of bumps to survey and over the next two years or so surveyed over 160 Welsh hills for Nuttall status, and by doing so a number of new Welsh Nuttalls entered the list.
My hill bagging continued with the Nuttall’s list and I eventually set myself the challenge of completing an ascent of all the Welsh 2,000fters in each month of the year, this entails a minimum of 12 rounds of the Welsh Nuttalls. I completed this in March 2002 on top of Yr Wyddfa in glorious weather with about 18 people present, including Rob. We sat just under the trig pillar for 90 minutes or so, drinking Cava whilst eating strawberries in beautiful sunshine; amazing conditions considering it was March.
By this time I had moved in to care for my father, he was aged 50 when I was born, therefore was old enough to be my grandfather. Over the last two years of his life he needed a tremendous amount of care and to an extent my life was taken over. To keep myself sane I started compiling hill lists. Some of my first list compilations included the Irish 500m P30s now co-authored with Michael Dewey, the Irish 400m P30s published without any consultation with me, by Mountain Views. I then concentrated on the Welsh P30s; conceiving eleven lists comprising the 100m height bands with the 30-99m P30s as the lowest and the 1,000m P30s as the highest, with only the lists of hills below 500m submitted for publication as the Welsh Hewitts and Deweys had already been published. Another list I compiled was the English 400m P30s now co-authored with Aled Williams and named The Fours.
I next compiled a Welsh 500m P15 list, comprising all hills in Wales at or above 500m all the way up to Yr Wyddfa, there are over 63o qualifying hills. This list is now co-authored with Aled and named The Welsh Highlands. By using a 15m minimum drop criterion I found that many of the smaller prominence hills had no name on the map. I asked myself two questions. One; does the hill have a name? Two; if it does, how do I find it?
At this stage I was dealing with the Rhinogydd range of hills. This is a superb mountain range situated in the west of Wales, positioned north of Barmouth and south of Trawsfynydd. The particular hill I was looking at had no name on the map. I wondered if I contacted the people at the farm positioned in the high valley below the hill whether they would know a name for it. I contacted them and they gave me a name. I thought that’s a pretty good strike rate; one enquiry and one name given and a name that had never appeared on any Ordnance Survey map.
Over the next 18–24 months I contacted over 500 people. In the main these were farmers, but they also included shepherds, land owners, estate workers, gamekeepers, estate owners, local historians and academics. I would make initial contact by phone late in the morning and continue this during the afternoon, scribbling all information given me. I would write all these details in the evening and following morning, before continuing my phone calls. This was years before I had a laptop, so all information was hand written. I covered all hill ranges in Wales that are above 500m in height, except ironically for three that are close to where I live; Beacon Hill, Pegwn Mawr and Fforest Glud. Aled has now conducted extensive research in to names for the hills in these areas. He has also typed all of the information I gathered and converted it to PDF format, so thankfully all of these enquiries are now backed-up. What I found was a mass of information with many names given me that have never appeared on any Ordnance Survey map. But I also found so much more. I realised how hospitable the farming community are and also how knowledgeable they are for the land they work. How generous this community is with imparting the knowledge they have. I was also told about the naming policies at play for land in Wales, these in the main are the cynefin, ffridd and field names which I will deal with in the last part of this talk.
Although I now rarely phone farmers, these enquiries are continuing by visiting farms during hill walks. One result of these enquiries is that I now realise how inappropriate it is for a hill list compiler to invent a name for a hill and how this can easily be perpetuated in its use by hill baggers. At this point I need to hold my hand up and say I am as guilty as anyone for inventing names for hills, as I did this on many an occasion when compiling the Welsh P30s. I had the time of my life using all manner of invented names, transposing farm names or stream names and putting Pen, Bryn or Moel in front of them, using directional components for names whenever I felt like it. I did this for convenience; however I now understand all are wholly inappropriate.
Part Three: List compilers using invented names
Before exploring how some hill list authors are prone to invent names for hills and why this is done, I would like to concentrate on names for hills that appear on maps. Let’s say we have a hill on an Ordnance Survey map that has a name under it. This same name has appeared for this hill in every past publication of this map and also all past series of maps. Because of this I would refer to this map name as an established name. However, have you ever asked yourselve where such names originate from? In all probability this name originated from the local community beside the hill. Now, let us imagine there is an adjacent hill to our established named hill, but this hill is unnamed on the map. If the local community or better still the local farmer whose land the summit of the hill is situated on, is asked whether there is a name for this hill, the probability is that an appropriate name would be given for it. For me, the locally known name and the established name have as much relevance and importance as one another as their originating source is the same, and that is from the local community beside the hill.
When hill list author’s deal with the information within their compilation they can be faced with many hundreds, if not thousands of qualifying hills. This can be daunting and therefore anyone can understand why when faced with such numbers of hills a list compiler resorts to using invented names. The main reason is one of convenience, however by doing so we as hill baggers are prone to then perpetuate the use of this invented name and this can then so easily be reproduced online via different sources and can, on occasion, be found on online mapping. There are examples of names I invented for hills when I originated the Welsh P30s that were duplicated by the author of the Tumps and listed as such in this list. These same hills are now known by hill baggers by these invented names and have appeared in many online sources and have found their way onto some online mapping. One perpetuates the other and all are inappropriate.
I would like to now give two examples how a list compiler can supplant, transpose or use a directional component within a hill name. All are inappropriate.
The first example involves a hill that has no name next to it on contemporary Ordnance Survey maps, but a farm that is relatively close to it does have a name, and this name sounds a bit hilly and is the nearest name to the summit of the hill on the map. In this example the list compiler transposes the name of the farm for that of the hill. As well as this being an invented name for the hill which has not been substantiated either from historical or local usage, the farm in this instance has no association with this particular hill, in fact the land where the hill is situated belongs to a farm that is much farther away. The end result is the use of an inappropriate name for the hill, with this then probably perpetuated by the hill bagging community.
The second example is where a hill list compiler supplants a name for a hill and uses a directional component.
We have two hills aligned north to south of one another. The northerly is the higher but has no map name, whilst the southerly is the lower but does have a map name. Let’s say the southerly, lower hill is named Foel Fawr. There is at least one hill list author who faced with this scenario prioritises the higher seemingly unnamed hill for the name that appears on the map and therefore supplants the name of Foel Fawr for the higher hill. They then use a directional component for the lower hill in relation to the newly named higher hill, and name the lower hill as Foel Fawr South Top. This results in the use of two inappropriate hill names. All one has to do is contact the local farmer whose land the northerly higher hill is on and in all probability an appropriate name for it will be forthcoming, this is not difficult to do and the end result is that each hill is listed by an appropriate name.
Part Four: Naming policies within Wales
The fourth and last part of my talk concentrates on the naming policy in use in Wales for land where the hill is positioned. This naming policy has been used for centuries and its rich heritage is in contrast with how many list authors deal with Welsh hills when they use invented names.
I’d like to take you to one of Wales’ better hill ridges; Crib Nantlle, the Nantlle ridge. Dependent upon criteria used this ridge consists of seven 2,000fters and is positioned above the small community of Nantlle. I know this community well as my mother lived in Nantlle until 2012 when she died, and my brother has since bought her house, so I’ve been visiting Nantlle since the mid-1990s.
In the central part of Crib Nantlle is a hill with a large stone tower on top. This I believe was built by the quarrymen of Dyffryn Nantlle to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. On Ordnance Survey maps the name Mynydd Tal y Mignedd appears just under the summit of this hill and in every hill list I know, it is this name that is given the hill. I’m sure everyone here this evening knows that the word Mynydd translates in to English as mountain and therefore the name of Mynydd Tal y Mignedd implies that this is the name of the hill; however it is not an individual hill name, it is a land name.
Below this hill in Dyffryn Nantlle is the farm of Tal-y-mignedd uchaf; the higher and Tal-y-mignedd isaf; the lower. The name of Mynydd Tal y Mignedd relates to the mynydd, or mountain land adjoined to the farm of Tal-y-mignedd. In Welsh this is known as the cynefin. This word is given to apportioned land usually comprising mountain or moor and which is adjoined to a specific farm. The relationship between the cynefin and a specific farm can go back centuries. In English the equivalent of the cynefin is the sheepwalk, these are agricultural terms. The word sheepwalk still appears on Ordnance Survey maps and can be spotted in hill country. The basis of the term cynefin, or sheepwalk, is the mountain land given over for the specific farm’s sheep to graze.
The opposing valley to Dyffryn Nantlle is Cwm Pennant, when visiting the farms in this valley and documenting the names the farmers gave me for the hills, I pointed toward the hill with the large stone tower on top and the predominant name given was Mynydd Blaen Pennant. Again, this is not an individual hill name but a land name and relates to the farm of Blaen Pennant, which is at the head of Cwm Pennant and when I made these enquiries I was told although still operating as a farm it was now empty. Similar to the land adjoined to the farm of Tal-y-mignedd; which is known as Mynydd Tal y Mignedd, this again is the land adjoined to the farm of Blaen Pennant; and is known as Mynydd Blaen Pennant. With the land adjoined to each farm meeting at the watershed on the ridge crest.
If we now visit the penultimate 2,000fter to the north-east on this ridge, the map has the name of Mynydd Drws y Coed in broad letters adjacent to the summit of this hill. This is the name that the majority, if not all list compilers have used for this hill, purely because it is the nearest name on the map to its summit. If you look in the valley below you’ll see the farm of Drws-y-coed. When I contacted the old farmer at Drws-y-coed they explained where the land boundary of the farm went to and confirmed that again this is not an individual hill name, it is a land name dealing with the apportioned mynydd, or mountain land of Drws-y-coed farm. The boundary for this mountain land goes up to a collapsed wall that butts up against the cliff face, when standing beside this wall the summit of the hill is a good few metres on the other side, meaning that the land named Mynydd Drws y Coed doesn’t even take in the summit of this hill.
The highest hill on Crib Nantlle is listed as a Marilyn, so I’m sure many here this evening would have visited it. It is listed in the Marilyns as it is in just about every other hill list by the name of Craig Cwm Silyn. This name appears near the summit of this hill on contemporary Ordnance Survey maps, but it is not the hill name, it is the name of one of the crags on the northerly part of the hill. When I contacted the farmers in both Dyffryn Nantlle and Cwm Pennant the pre-dominant name given me for this hill was Craig Las. This is the whole mountain that also takes in the P20 summit named as Garnedd Goch on the map. The local farmers know this as one mountain, which is not surprising as few people outside of our community of hill listers and baggers fully understand the relevance of prominence. Interestingly, when you look at the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map, there’s a stream that heads down from the upper part of this hill toward Dyffryn Nantlle that is named as Afon Craig Las, the implication being that its source is a hill or crag known as Craig Las.
If we now concentrate on the land below the mountain and moor, this is mixed land comprising heath, high pasture and woodland. This is the land that takes in the ffridd. When examining an Ordnance Survey map you can find many names that are prefixed with the word Ffridd. The ffridd, or ffriddoedd for its plural, is again a land name and not necessarily an individual hill name. One of the hills that John, Graham and I surveyed many years ago is named in the Dewey list as Ffridd Allt yr Llwyd. This is not necessarily the hill name, it is a land name. The ffridd usually comprises bounded land, with is enclosed either by fences or walls. There are many hills listed in the 400m height band; the Pedwarau and the 300m height band; the Trichant, that appear under a name that is prefixed with the word ffridd, again this is the mixed land comprising heath, high pasture and woodland. For our purposes as list compilers and hill baggers it is appropriate to use these names taking in the cynefin and ffridd if no appropriate individual hill name is forthcoming.
We are now in the age where every P30 in Britain is listed; these are the Tumps and the height band that is of most interest when dealing with Welsh hill names is the lower heighted hills comprising many of these P30s. The reason why is simple; many of these lower heighted hills do not have individual hill names, which is at contrast to the higher hills, which do. The reason for this is that few people outside of our community of listers and hill baggers view these as separate hills. I seldom now phone farmers, but when on a walk passing through a farmyard I will usually knock on the front door. After I’ve introduced myself to the farmer and explained my interest in hill names, I point toward the hill and ask if they know a name for it. I have been met by many a quizzical smile and a reply asking ‘what hill is that then?’ I point again saying ‘that one, up there’, ‘well now, that’s not a hill, is it’ has come the reply. ‘That’s just a field’.
We view these lower heighted hills as individual hills, which is not surprising as we consider ourselves hill baggers who follow hill lists. However, few people outside of our community consider these as individual hills, many are just high fields and some are not even very high. For the farming community these lower heighted hills are just grazing fields and as such many do not have individual names. Remember where names for hills originate from, if the rich tapestry of heritage is to be respected they do not originate with the list author, unless they have invented a name, they originate from the local community and as many of these lower heighted hills do not possess an individual name, it is appropriate for us as hill listers and baggers to use the name of the land where the summit of the hill is situated. This policy follows that of the cynefin and ffridd and for these lower heighted hills we now encounter what is known as a field name, the naming policies for each in turn; that of the cynefin, ffridd and now field names have been in place in Wales for centuries. The field names documented for Wales during the 1800s can be found on the Tithe map. These are hosted by the National Library of Wales and are available online. The field boundaries at the time of the Tithe can be compared to contemporary field boundaries on Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 maps, each for the former has an individual number, once the field where the summit of the hill is found the apportionments can be accessed, these give the name of the landowner, tenant farmer, in many instances the acreage of the field, its use be it pasture or arable and importantly its name.
These naming policies including the cynefin,
ffridd and field names have left us a rich heritage originated by the people
who live beside the respective hill and work the land where the summit is
situated. This heritage gives us the
names of individual hills and the land where summits are situated. This is also our heritage that we as listers
and baggers can use. By doing so this
respects where names originate from and by using these it dispenses with the
notion of using invented names and relies upon the knowledge of the people who
have been giving names to hills and land for many centuries. In the main this is the farming community. In relation to hill and land names this
community knows so much more than our community of hill listers and
baggers. We can communicate with the
farming community who have given our hills their names, by doing so we can
learn from and respect the knowledge they have and by using this knowledge we
can improve the information within the hill lists we use.
I’ve really enjoyed giving this evening’s talk
and I hope you have also enjoyed it.
Thank you.
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