Note 22 — I The Settlement of the South-and East-Saxons

One would like to know on what ground the suffix “-well,” familiar in Essex (Broadwell, Chadwell, Hawkwell, Netteswell, Prittlewell, Ridgwell, Roxwell, Runwell), but curiously absent in Sussex, is derived from the Roman ‘villa.’ It is found in Domesday precisely the same as at the present day. Yet Professor Earle writes of “Wilburgewella” that it is “an interesting name as showing the naturalized form of the Latin villa, of which the ordinary Saxon equivalent was haga” (Land Charters, p. 130). This latter equation seems to be most surprising. It is traceable apparently to a charter of 855, in which we read of “unam villam quod nos Saxonice ‘an hagan’ dicimus” (Ib. p. 336), an obviously suspicious phrase. There is no ground for terming the ‘Ceolmundinge haga’ of a starred document (Ib. p. 315) a villa, while the ‘haga’ of another (Ib. p. 364) is clearly a haw, as in ‘Bassishaw.’ Yet another charter (Ib. p. 447) is not in point.