Archenfield: origin of name #2 (AW; StC. Baddeley)

URICONIUM: ARICONIUM: ARCHENFIELD.

(cxlvii. 408, 447).

I claim no qualification to help in the derivation of the two Romano-British town names. But as the far more modern district name of Archenfield has been brought in as if it were a factor in the matter I wish to point out that this regional name does not (as far as I can ascertain) date further back than 1589. Also that, with one exception, the district in Herefordshire (once containing a Welsh colony loyal to the English King) now called Archenfield, was, from Saxon times to 1599 (and later), called by names which were simply the English of the day for “hedgehog-field.” The list I give is partly given in Canon Bannister’s ‘Place Names of Herefordshire,’ to which I have added from other sources:

In the Bishop’s Registers of Hereford (Cantilupe Soc.) I find scores of entries of this Deanery, from the 1276 Irchinfield to the 1536 Irchynfyld, with many slight variations of this spelling, but the great majority beginning Irch—, all ending in “field” in some form, a few only having the varied opening of Itch—, Hirch— and Urch. One only, Archinfilde in 1517, has the “arch” beginning and this might be a transcriber’s error, as others in the same year begin with “irch.” Other records I find are:

The common English hedgehog had its old name “urchin” spelt with many variations. I have no access to the letter U in the Oxford Dictionary but under I are “irchin.” “irchon,” “yrechon,” “irchown,” {30a} “yrchown,” “erchin,” “irchyn “yrichyn,” “irchen”—all for “urchin” or “hedgehog,” for which, in the Century Dictionary, are also given the variants — “urchon,” “urchyn,” “hirchen.”

Compare this list with the old names for the district (and deanery) now called Archenfield, and how can it be doubted that it was “hedgehog-field” all down the Middle Ages? Even as late as 1869 that good antiquarian the Rev. John Webb, writing his last book (‘Memoirs of Col. Birch’) at the age of 93, spells it “Irchinfield” in all his three references; and he lived in its midst. There is a farm in Hardwick parish called Urchin-field in old maps, and even in ‘Pelly’s Directory“ of 1922, although it is now being modernised into “Archenfield.”

“Urchin” was (and is) a name for a boy, a brat, a rough, troublesome little fellow. It is quite probable that the people of the Welsh colony in Irchenfield were given this nickname; they were short in stature, and the tradition expressed in “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief” is general. The —inga— element of the name in early versions supports this hedgehog-clan theory.

The old family of Abrahall of Abrahall, in the centre of the district called Irchenfield, had urchins or hedgehogs on their coat of arms.

I surmise the Domesday entry of “Arcenfeld” to have been a passing error. If correct how is it that the “arc” version does not occur until four hundred years later, when Camden in his ‘Britannia’ (1586) says quite incorrectly (vol. iii. p. 66), “Part of the country east from this valley, now Irchenfeld, is called in the Conqueror’s survey, Archinfeld.” He then ventures the guess “How far Arcenfeld reached I know not, but the similarity between the names of Ereunic, Arcenfeld, the town of Ariconium, and Hareford or Hereford, has led me to think them all derived from Ariconium.” He later refers to the Domesday entry as “Arkenfield.”

This very dubious use of “Archenfield” as a place-name appears to have been taken up by seventeenth century antiquaries, who may have linked it up with the supposed skill of the inhabitants in archery, for the bowmen of Archenfield became banded as a society, and the Archenfield Militia were another body.

The Roman site Ariconium (owned by my brother at one time) is three miles outside the boundary of Irchinfield, and probably {30b} never was in it, being on the wrong side both of the Wye and of Offa’s Dyke.
Alfred Watkins.

Hereford.

With regard to the latter name, perhaps I may be permitted to deal a little further, owing the the suggestion already put forward that (1) possibly an obscure rootword for ore may be behind it, and also because (2) a relationship (?) seems quite possible between it and Arcunium, i.e., the Erzgebirge district of the early Celtic Boii, later, in Nero’s day that of those privileged Teutonic traders, the Hermunduri, of whom, Tacitus tells us, that they were freely and specially allowed passage of the Danube to traffic with flourishing Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg). Of course, if they brought their valuable ore to market, that would fully account for their unusual favour. But we have no documentary evidence of the fact: and we have to guess it from their welcome trading and from their possessing that rich region.

The reason for these suggestions arises from the unsatisfying hypothesis hitherto prevailing as to the respective origins of their terminal element -cunium or -conium. At the back of this lies the obvious fact that we can obtain no earlier forms of the old British name to help us. This has forced the Celtic-Place-name-student to resort to Welsh -cwn, or old Celtic -cuno = “summit,” “top,” “head;” and to treat Ari, the first theme, as a Celtic prefix, such as Ar—are: beside or against (cf. Gk. παρα). It is obvious that at Weston, nr. Ross (Ariconium), there is no commanding head or summit at all, beside which a station, or settlement, might originate such a description of name. On the other hand, the “ore” has lain for ages all over the place and lies not far beneath its surface. Hence, such a derivation for Ariconium (Cf. Ar(e)morica: beside the sea) is unfeasible; and the division of the word into two portions may need to be quite a different one.

The Erging of the Monmouthshire Archenfield and Irchene, seem both to retain and suggest some element more important than a mere preposition, or adverb: rather, some significant element that may well have been even non-Celtic, possibly Iberic (time may, perhaps, tell us): or the name of a divinity. As to Arcucnium, the same reasoning will hold almost as efficiently. For Zeuss and Dottin, and others, have attached a merely intensive sense to the first element, owing to {31a} this ar carrying a parasitic h (cf. ’Αρκυνιος of Aristotle: Meteorol. 1, 13, 19, and Dionys: Halic. 1A, 1, 2), which gave us the Latin form “Hercynia” (silva). Therefore these authorities have contentedly rendered Arcunia—very high (i.e., Welsh cwn height, altitude) + ar-er, Germ: sehr. But the ’Αρ-κυνια ’ορη or Erzgebirge, are by no means very high. They are distinctly lower than their neighbouring chains. Surely these Hercynii montes, with their famous mighty oak-forests (sacred trees) and their rich metals, must have appealed to both Celtic and pre-Celtic tribal owners of the Bronze and Iron Ages for far more remarkable virtues than for their quite modest altitudes! They would have been the abodes of superior divinities, to whom such paramount riches would have been solemnly consecrate, even long before the great days of Hallstatt and La Tene; and, if so, we shall be justified in at least suspecting that the name of some obscure god or goddess still peeps through the syllable Hark- or Herk-, if not some vanished term for Ore. Similar watchfulness may be directed with regard to Avaricon (Cæsar’s Avaricum: Bourges, on the r. Yèvre)  A. de Tubainville regards this r. Avara as a non-Celtic name. If so, Avaricon is likewise: and it may be, as he thinks, Ligurian, but possibly Iberic.
St. Clair Baddeley.