Dictionary of names finds a place

The volume brings together new and existing research

A dictionary of 2,000 place-names in Wales is published at the end of a seven-year research project at Bangor University.

The volume also explains the origins of 1,000 other names, including rivers and mountains.

The authors hope it will answer many of the questions about the origin of names of places, from Aber to Ystumtuen.

But Wales' longest name, usually shortened to Llanfair PG, on Anglesey, is dismissed as a "fanciful appendage".

The 500-page dictionary pulls away the layers of evidence from the original Welsh and English translations, interpretations and local legends over centuries.

Entries include the origins for odd place names such as Loggerheads in Denbighshire.

Named after an inn on the border with Flintshire, the "at loggerheads" phrase has been used because there was long-standing legal argument over mineral rights.

Although the pub's 18th Century sign showing two heads looking in different directions offers another explanation.

PLACE-NAMES EXPLAINED Brymbo - hill of dirt Caldicot - cold hut, used as a store Cricieth - mound/castle of captives/prisoners Haverfordwest - Old English for western goat-ford Mochdre - pig farm Tenby - from little fort of the fish

Another pub is thought to hold the key to the name Tumble in Carmarthenshire. The inn was built on a steep hill which was regarded as a danger to travellers.

Clatter in Montgomeryshire derives from a noisy turnpike gate.

While Cadhole in Flintshire comes from cathole, the name for lifting machinery in a lead mine. There is also a legend that a cat was found in an old shaft in the 18th Century.

The story behind Maenclochog in Pembrokeshire, meaning "rocks sounding like a bell", is thanks to two rocks near a church which if struck would make an appealing sound.

'Best evidence'

The authors, Professor Hywel Wyn Owen and archivist Richard Morgan have found evidence for some names for which little was known about

The study also made use of 300,000 research notes made by place-names expert Professor Melville Richards, a former professor of Welsh in Bangor who died in 1973.

Prof Owen said: "There was a need for such a book because there's a wealth of information and a marvellous interest in Wales and beyond in place names and their significance."

Mr Morgan added: "I was born in Wrexham where Welsh and English place names are mixed together. That was the source of my interest.

"Over the years I have met many people - academics and general people - interested in the subject, but there wasn't any book which could answer their questions."

Some place-names remain a little obscure, such as Mumbles in Swansea, which comes from its two small islands, either meaning the "mumbling" of the sea over rocks or possibly even the Latin for breasts.

But there is short shrift for the addition to Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll on Anglesey, which gave Wales' most famous and longest place-name.

The authors describe it as "little more than a fanciful appendage, deliberately coined to ensure continued prominence" for a railway station which had been due close after the completion of the Britannia bridge in 1850.

The Dictionary Of Place-Names Of Wales is published by Gomer Press, £29.99.