Sir,—Mr. G. H. Jack in his recent paper reminded us of the assertion that Archenfield means the territory attached to the Roman town of Ariconium, or as we might now call it Ariconiumshire. To this Mr. Alfred Watkins raised several philological objections, but I think that the fact that the Bishop of Rochester’s official signature is Roffen, for Episcopus Roffensis, where Rochester stands for the Anglo-saxon Hroffa’s ceaster, is a confirmation of Mr. Jack’s view, for the elision of a short “i” between two consonants and the change of “c” into “ch” is common enough.
But I would point to the fact that whilst territorial names of Roman origin as distinct from names of towns are very rare in England, they are not uncommon in the West Midlands. Thus, whilst the dwellers round this Roman London were known not as Londoners, but as Middle Saxons, our Middlesex, the first Mercian settlers in Herefordshire were known as the Magesætas, probably from Magna Kenchester. Again, one of the great roads leading to Bath was the Akemanstreet, where Ake stands for the Latin name of Bath Aquæ Sulis, just as in the border lands where the Celtic Walloons meet the Low German Netherlanders and Rhinelanders, Aachen, Aix-la-Chapelle represents Aquisgranum, Aquæ Grani, the waters of Granus, the Celtic war god. Dorset, too, may represent the settlers round the Roman town of Dorchester, but elsewhere I can only think of Kent, derived from the Celtic name Cantium, whose inhabitants in Saxon times were the Cantwaras dwelling round Canterbury, which no longer retained its Roman name. These seem arguments for the assumption that Archenfield is really the district of Ariconium, the Pagus AriconesisAriconensis.
I would only add that it seems a great pity that any change should be made in the historic boundaries of the Rural
Deanery of Archenfield, for there can be but little doubt that they may have come down to us from Roman times seeing
that they constitute for the most part the territory which the British See of Llandaff was forced to give up to the
Saxon and Norman See of Hereford in 1131. I think it is somewhat significant, unless, of course, the arrangement is a
modern one, that Kilpeck should form a part of the Rural Deanery of Abbeydore, although it lies to the east of the Worm,
and that it should he described in some early mediæval documents as Kilpeck “in Wales.”—Yours
etc.,
H. READE.
Much Dewchurch.
Source info: MS note by AW “H Times Oct 28”.