Unusually heavy winter rains have flooded the town of Chertsey, west of London, twice in the past three years. Only its old center—a raised plot on the bank of the River Thames where Anglo-Saxon monks built an abbey in the seventh century—has remained consistently dry. For most residents, the rising waters, often stinking with sewage, have come as an unwelcome surprise after centuries of a relatively dry, stable climate. They seem to have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, this telling fact about the place they call home: In Old English, Chertsey means "Ceorot's island."
The name harkens back to the Early Medieval Period, when Germanic tribes began to settle, and name, many of the places dotting maps of modern Britain. Back then, water was ubiquitous. Sediment deposits dating to this era paint a picture of overtopped riverbanks and runoff rushing down slopes. "Anglo-Saxon England was a water world," says Richard Jones, a landscape historian at the University of Leicester. He studies how early English settlers used place names, or toponyms, to encode practical information about their watery environment. For instance, Byfleet, a village in southern England, indicates a "tidal creek," or "estuary"; Buildwas, in the west, describes "land subject to rapid flooding and draining"; and Averham, in the east, a "settlement at the floods."
What does it mean for North Piddle, Shitterton, Crapstone, and Scratchy Bottom?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Jaruzel on Wednesday November 25 2015, @03:34PM
Daily Fail link notwithstanding, I live down the road from Pratts Bottom. In fact, en-route to it via a major road, one will see a sign that says:
30 years of seeing it, and it still makes me smile :)
-Jar
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday November 25 2015, @04:05PM
Is your name Roger Storer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @05:05PM
(Score: 4, Funny) by Hartree on Wednesday November 25 2015, @05:14PM
"30 years of seeing it, and it still makes me smile :)"
But does it make Pratt smile? (And do we really want to know?)