Thank you for that wonderful video. I have two connections to the subject matter. 1. I was born and spent my pre-school years in Kintbury in the late '50s and early '60s. 2. My mother (A Doctor) studied the Beaker burial sites and especially the skeletons of the people buried in her retirement. She worked on the large dig on Hungerford Down in the late '70s opened due to road widening. I can remember flying kites with my Dad on Totterdown!! Lovely video of the Yellowhammer too 😀
I lived in Inkpen for nearly 20 years and the area is predominanatly clay with underlying chalk (a very long way down). Clay pits rather than quarrying would be more likely in this area. There is also a series of pits in the triangle of land to the SE of where you were. I have also seen your mysterious stream in the depths of flooding meandering across the fields (it is more into the field than hugging the wood nowadays.
I'm fascinated by the language, so we (I especially) cannot say words like Coln easily because of its Celtic (Presumably Iron age Tribes?) origins? I think I need a video on these alone!
It’s easy to get carried away with this idea but where you do come across a place name that is a bit of a mouth-full that does give you the impression that it is a bit unusual to get your mouth around for the native English speaker, you may find it is pre-English. Calne in Wiltshire and Colnbrook in Berkshire are buggers for me to pronounce and sometimes I will pause before saying them. It might be the l before a consonant: however we have whelp and whelk, there is no problem there. But not everyone pronounces the l in folk and yolk, good English words but are contracted for many people. Some sounds are natural for other languages and difficult for others.
@@AllotmentFox understood, but the language and the place names gives us so much! I guess the deeper question is, how can we know this about ourselves, in the context of.... I don't know if I descend from an Anglos Saxon, A Roman, or... whichever branch. Maybe I am over thinking, but still find this really intriguing
@AllotmentFox ok, I think I'm labouring a point I don't fully understand. If my descendants where more.... Dane, or Viking, would I not then find it easier to pronounce words that derive from their occupation. Genuinely never considered this!
@@pwhitewick no, genetic characteristics don’t work like that. It is not genes that emphasise fair play, understatement, the English language, football, sarcasm, imaginative swearing and warm beer. The culture is entirely seperate from the pool of genes. Of course your parents being English would mean you have advantages to understanding the culture you are in but any obstacles are not insurmountable. I know a few second-generation immigrants who, if you closed your eyes, are indistinguishable from people who have been here generations: values, vowels, manners, emphasis; the works.
I love how half of the vlog is really just a nature ramble. Quite a difference in weather again, north to south. I've been looking at the rain all day and the trees and hedges being blown sideways, hopefully it'll blow itself out as I'm due up a mountain tomorrow morning. Although I appreciate that Brythonic (P) Celtic has long roots in southern (what's now) England there is still just as much overlap with Goidelic (Q) Celtic. The Brythonic speakers pushed the Goidelic speakers north west in the late centuries BCE just as the Anglo-Saxons did to the British centuries later. Cú is the Gaelic for dog. Although its oft disputed Glencoe is probably 'The Glen of the Dogs' and the great Irish hero Cúchulainn is Cúlann's Hound.
I understood Goidelic speakers appeared in Britain about the same time as the English but from Ireland. I understood it was Brythonnic all over Britain and probably including the Picts in some form
@@AllotmentFox Goidelic and Brythonic, both being Indo-European forms of Celtic, drifted northwestwards and diversified, as languages do. More Brythonic speakers continued to enter Britain, possibly to avoid the encroaching Roman Empire (Belgae being a prime example); although I see it as happening earlier, the way that the Urnfield culture was 'transplanted' by the Beaker people. (Yeah, I know there's a very smudgy line between language, culture and genetics). There's a long oral history in Ireland of different 'races' arriving on its shores as well, which is interpreted as migrations. Prime incentives to migration being population pressure (war, famine etc); possibly Brythonic speakers edging out Goidelic speakers from central Britain in the late centuries BCE. The problem with this is nobody really has a definitive timescale of when early Goidelic and early Brythonic diverged from each other; was it after Celtic speakers entered the British Isles or earlier than that. The theory that the 'Scots' as the first Gaelic speakers came solely from North East Ireland isn't really accepted anymore. Its thought that there were plenty of early Gaelic speakers long before the setting up of the Kingdom of Dalriata. Although Pictish as a language is still an unknown (and St Columba did need a translator when he visited the court of King Brude around Inverness) its still not known if it is Pre-Celtic, Proto-Celtic or a particularly separate dialect of early Gaelic. If it was Brythonic its presumed there would be a large overlap between Early Medieval Welsh and Scottish placenames (outside of the Dalriatic south west) at least ... which there isn't. Not helped by the Ogham (Erse) carved on a few (type 2) Pictish stones being effectively gobbledygook. We just need that Rosetta Stone with decipherable Ogham, Latin and Pictish symbols all together. The Picts (which they probably never called themselves - the Gaelic name for them is Cruithne) remain an enigma and trying to force the lack of facts into a decisive theory isn't good history. Sorry, long and unclear answer to its not as simple as Victorian textbooks wanted to make it.
Brilliant, I remember your Tothill video and I obviously didn't learn a thing. Totterdown. Great work Sir also, Totterdown house was the childhood home of Kirstie Allsopp. It is amazing whats in that area, I've often looked long at the HER and been stunned, it's a pity its all been ploughed out but I guess we have to eat 😊
@@AllotmentFox All I can say about that is the cottage halfway up Totterdown House's drive (to the right) has always been called Colnbrook Cottage (as far as I'm aware), it was there when Totterdown House was just a farm. Not sure but I think there was a brick & tile works up there somewhere. I used to be the gardener at Wallingtons, now St Cassians Centre and one of the Brothers wrote a book, the history of Wallingtons, Brother Anthony Porter (sadly no longer with us). He managed to get hold of some old estate maps from way back, held by the Marriot family who still reside in the area and they covered the area in question. I've not seen the book but I'm sure it would contain some info of use, family names etc then these could be searched for relevant collections, I know they dated to the 17th century and he was really excited about them. I would love for it to be Coln and not Cold. What worries me is Coldharbour Farm just up the road, may be totally unrelated.
@@AllotmentFox Looking on the Inkpen history site and in particular the Craven Estate maps of 1775 it looks as though 'the bottom' is the area around abouts where the old Swan pub is. Plot number 117.
I can't see a Celtic etymology for Coln, surely collen (hazel) would make more sense? Cold Brook seems more likely as there aren't that many Celtic toponyms in Berkshire and there's another Colnbrook in east Berks.
Ekwall says it is British (rather than English) and says that its etymology is obscure. Then elsewhere he says it is from Latin calare (to call) and Welsh ceilog (cock) and means “roaring river”. Grundy says the word coln comes from cuneglae but I can’t remember which of the Celtic languages it was from nor the charter he was talking about. There are a lot of colns. Grundy did make a few things up but the sheer volume of his work makes up for it by being so useful. I have quoted authorities but sadly I don’t have any Welsh knowledge myself and don’t know how to begin probing the truthfullness of those authorities. Do you know of a Welsh equivalent to Ekwall’s Dictionary of Placenames or a Welsh placename society that has published much?
@@AllotmentFox I don't see how "*calare", "ceiliog" or "*cuneglae" become "coln". Two of them don't even appear to be real words (*). The Saxons tended to concatenate sounds in place names, but I can't trace any pattern of sound changes that would make sense. "cwm", "collen", "cymer" or maybe "cil" might. I'm not an expert in toponyms but I tend to question mixed etymologies unless they produce bilingual tautologies (eg. River RiverRiver). There are a lot of River Colnes in the UK and Brythonic place names are rarely that inventive. The Welsh Place-Name Society (Cymdeithas Enwau Lleoedd Cymru) might be a starting point.
@@WC21UKProductionsLtd its in the Tithe map of 1841. Though less tham 200 years ago it is an authentic record that involved local people. I can’t see anything older therefore I have to accept objective facts, be on the side of plain truth, otherwise I become a wild-eyed, foaming-in-the-mouth, RUclips conspiracy theorist tramp. I guess I could do both.
Thank you for that wonderful video. I have two connections to the subject matter. 1. I was born and spent my pre-school years in Kintbury in the late '50s and early '60s. 2. My mother (A Doctor) studied the Beaker burial sites and especially the skeletons of the people buried in her retirement. She worked on the large dig on Hungerford Down in the late '70s opened due to road widening. I can remember flying kites with my Dad on Totterdown!! Lovely video of the Yellowhammer too 😀
I lived in Inkpen for nearly 20 years and the area is predominanatly clay with underlying chalk (a very long way down). Clay pits rather than quarrying would be more likely in this area. There is also a series of pits in the triangle of land to the SE of where you were. I have also seen your mysterious stream in the depths of flooding meandering across the fields (it is more into the field than hugging the wood nowadays.
I'm fascinated by the language, so we (I especially) cannot say words like Coln easily because of its Celtic (Presumably Iron age Tribes?) origins? I think I need a video on these alone!
It’s easy to get carried away with this idea but where you do come across a place name that is a bit of a mouth-full that does give you the impression that it is a bit unusual to get your mouth around for the native English speaker, you may find it is pre-English. Calne in Wiltshire and Colnbrook in Berkshire are buggers for me to pronounce and sometimes I will pause before saying them. It might be the l before a consonant: however we have whelp and whelk, there is no problem there. But not everyone pronounces the l in folk and yolk, good English words but are contracted for many people. Some sounds are natural for other languages and difficult for others.
@@AllotmentFox understood, but the language and the place names gives us so much! I guess the deeper question is, how can we know this about ourselves, in the context of.... I don't know if I descend from an Anglos Saxon, A Roman, or... whichever branch. Maybe I am over thinking, but still find this really intriguing
@pwhitewick culture and language have nothing to do with genes so we can rest easy!
@AllotmentFox ok, I think I'm labouring a point I don't fully understand. If my descendants where more.... Dane, or Viking, would I not then find it easier to pronounce words that derive from their occupation. Genuinely never considered this!
@@pwhitewick no, genetic characteristics don’t work like that. It is not genes that emphasise fair play, understatement, the English language, football, sarcasm, imaginative swearing and warm beer. The culture is entirely seperate from the pool of genes. Of course your parents being English would mean you have advantages to understanding the culture you are in but any obstacles are not insurmountable. I know a few second-generation immigrants who, if you closed your eyes, are indistinguishable from people who have been here generations: values, vowels, manners, emphasis; the works.
I love how half of the vlog is really just a nature ramble. Quite a difference in weather again, north to south. I've been looking at the rain all day and the trees and hedges being blown sideways, hopefully it'll blow itself out as I'm due up a mountain tomorrow morning.
Although I appreciate that Brythonic (P) Celtic has long roots in southern (what's now) England there is still just as much overlap with Goidelic (Q) Celtic. The Brythonic speakers pushed the Goidelic speakers north west in the late centuries BCE just as the Anglo-Saxons did to the British centuries later. Cú is the Gaelic for dog. Although its oft disputed Glencoe is probably 'The Glen of the Dogs' and the great Irish hero Cúchulainn is Cúlann's Hound.
I understood Goidelic speakers appeared in Britain about the same time as the English but from Ireland. I understood it was Brythonnic all over Britain and probably including the Picts in some form
@@AllotmentFox Goidelic and Brythonic, both being Indo-European forms of Celtic, drifted northwestwards and diversified, as languages do. More Brythonic speakers continued to enter Britain, possibly to avoid the encroaching Roman Empire (Belgae being a prime example); although I see it as happening earlier, the way that the Urnfield culture was 'transplanted' by the Beaker people. (Yeah, I know there's a very smudgy line between language, culture and genetics). There's a long oral history in Ireland of different 'races' arriving on its shores as well, which is interpreted as migrations. Prime incentives to migration being population pressure (war, famine etc); possibly Brythonic speakers edging out Goidelic speakers from central Britain in the late centuries BCE. The problem with this is nobody really has a definitive timescale of when early Goidelic and early Brythonic diverged from each other; was it after Celtic speakers entered the British Isles or earlier than that.
The theory that the 'Scots' as the first Gaelic speakers came solely from North East Ireland isn't really accepted anymore. Its thought that there were plenty of early Gaelic speakers long before the setting up of the Kingdom of Dalriata. Although Pictish as a language is still an unknown (and St Columba did need a translator when he visited the court of King Brude around Inverness) its still not known if it is Pre-Celtic, Proto-Celtic or a particularly separate dialect of early Gaelic. If it was Brythonic its presumed there would be a large overlap between Early Medieval Welsh and Scottish placenames (outside of the Dalriatic south west) at least ... which there isn't. Not helped by the Ogham (Erse) carved on a few (type 2) Pictish stones being effectively gobbledygook. We just need that Rosetta Stone with decipherable Ogham, Latin and Pictish symbols all together. The Picts (which they probably never called themselves - the Gaelic name for them is Cruithne) remain an enigma and trying to force the lack of facts into a decisive theory isn't good history.
Sorry, long and unclear answer to its not as simple as Victorian textbooks wanted to make it.
Brilliant, I remember your Tothill video and I obviously didn't learn a thing. Totterdown. Great work Sir also, Totterdown house was the childhood home of Kirstie Allsopp. It is amazing whats in that area, I've often looked long at the HER and been stunned, it's a pity its all been ploughed out but I guess we have to eat 😊
What I would really like as an unrepentant antiquarian is to find that Coln Brook is older than Cold Brook. Then we have another Welsh link
@@AllotmentFox All I can say about that is the cottage halfway up Totterdown House's drive (to the right) has always been called Colnbrook Cottage (as far as I'm aware), it was there when Totterdown House was just a farm. Not sure but I think there was a brick & tile works up there somewhere.
I used to be the gardener at Wallingtons, now St Cassians Centre and one of the Brothers wrote a book, the history of Wallingtons, Brother Anthony Porter (sadly no longer with us). He managed to get hold of some old estate maps from way back, held by the Marriot family who still reside in the area and they covered the area in question. I've not seen the book but I'm sure it would contain some info of use, family names etc then these could be searched for relevant collections, I know they dated to the 17th century and he was really excited about them.
I would love for it to be Coln and not Cold. What worries me is Coldharbour Farm just up the road, may be totally unrelated.
@@thebeatentrack156have you heard of ‘the bottom’ probably near Lower Green? Also have you heard of Brad Bourn?
@@AllotmentFox No, neither
@@AllotmentFox Looking on the Inkpen history site and in particular the Craven Estate maps of 1775 it looks as though 'the bottom' is the area around abouts where the old Swan pub is. Plot number 117.
I can't see a Celtic etymology for Coln, surely collen (hazel) would make more sense? Cold Brook seems more likely as there aren't that many Celtic toponyms in Berkshire and there's another Colnbrook in east Berks.
Ekwall says it is British (rather than English) and says that its etymology is obscure. Then elsewhere he says it is from Latin calare (to call) and Welsh ceilog (cock) and means “roaring river”. Grundy says the word coln comes from cuneglae but I can’t remember which of the Celtic languages it was from nor the charter he was talking about. There are a lot of colns. Grundy did make a few things up but the sheer volume of his work makes up for it by being so useful. I have quoted authorities but sadly I don’t have any Welsh knowledge myself and don’t know how to begin probing the truthfullness of those authorities. Do you know of a Welsh equivalent to Ekwall’s Dictionary of Placenames or a Welsh placename society that has published much?
@@AllotmentFox I don't see how "*calare", "ceiliog" or "*cuneglae" become "coln". Two of them don't even appear to be real words (*). The Saxons tended to concatenate sounds in place names, but I can't trace any pattern of sound changes that would make sense. "cwm", "collen", "cymer" or maybe "cil" might. I'm not an expert in toponyms but I tend to question mixed etymologies unless they produce bilingual tautologies (eg. River RiverRiver). There are a lot of River Colnes in the UK and Brythonic place names are rarely that inventive. The Welsh Place-Name Society (Cymdeithas Enwau Lleoedd Cymru) might be a starting point.
Thats a Yellowhammer 😊
Oh curses
How sure are you that “Cold Brook” is the original name, as opposed to “Coln”? It would be nice if it were the latter, wouldn’t it?!
@@WC21UKProductionsLtd its in the Tithe map of 1841. Though less tham 200 years ago it is an authentic record that involved local people. I can’t see anything older therefore I have to accept objective facts, be on the side of plain truth, otherwise I become a wild-eyed, foaming-in-the-mouth, RUclips conspiracy theorist tramp. I guess I could do both.