h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My partner told me his brother is moving to Houghton-Le-Spring. I thought this to be in the home counties which explained the French name. But it's up in the grim North can anyone explain why a french-sounding name is found up there?

The aristocracy spoke French for a while after the Norman invasion, I guess.

My place names dictionary says "Houghton in le Spryng 1410. Affix is originally manorial from the Spring family, here in the early 14th cent."

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About 400 years, wasn't it?

Ah - thank you.

t'up north is also chester le' street, called by the locals chester-lee street

weston super mare was, weston sur le mare

funny names crop up everywhere

swansea was a viking name, swains isle

and anything with a cester was roman

There's quite a few Aughtons and close relatives in Lancashire, between Liverpool and Manchester.

Places ending in -by, such as Whitby, are something. Viking I think.

Friends of ours used to live in Houghton-le-Spring.
And Hetton-le-Hole is just up the road.
They're not as nice as they sound, though.

I'm trying to think of X-le-Y names in the South of England. I can only think of Stanford-le-Hope

... and that's a similarly grim-looking place:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=stanford-le-hope&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=9.196152,26.191406&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Stanford-le-Hope,+Essex,+United+Kingdom&ll=51.524312,0.439153&spn=0.009559,0.025578&z=15&layer=c&cbll=51.524923,0.441522&panoid=fmqt26ze0-jsPpOsnI4L0g&cbp=12,279.68,,0,-2.4