CHAPTER SEVEN 



THE PLACE-NAMES OF 

 CAMBRIDGESHIRE^ 



By P. H. Reaney, litt.d., ph.d. 



CAMBRIDGE, GRANTCHESTER, AND ELY WERE RIGHTLY 

 derived some thirty years ago by the great Cambridge philologist 

 and pioneer of English place-name studies, the late Prof. Skeat.^ 

 A few scholars in other fields hesitated to accept his etymology of Cam- 

 bridge but recent advances in the study serve only to confirm it. The 

 earliest reference to the town is Bede's Grantaceastir (c. 730), "the Roman 

 fort on the Granta". Tliis would normally become " Grant chester", but 

 the reference is undoubtedly to Cambridge and not to the modern 

 Grantchester which appears in early sources as Granteseta, "the settlers on 

 the Granta". As early as 745, in Felix's Life of St Guthlac, had come the 

 change in the second element which has given rise to the present-day 

 name of Cambridge (Grontabricc) . The site of a Norman castle and a centre 

 of Norman administration, the town was subject to strong Norman 

 influence wliich had its effect on the name, until, through such forms as 

 Cantehruge {c. 1125), Canutehrig (1230) and Caumhrigg (i353)> tbe ancestor 

 of the modern spelling was reached in Camhrigge (1436). 



Grantchester is an interesting example of phonetic change and popular 

 etymology resulting, ultimately, in the form that Cambridge should have 

 had. Grantsete became Gransete and Grancete, pronunciations which 

 suggested an analogy with such names as Leicester and Worcester. The 

 name was accordingly spelled Granceste, Grancestre, Granceter, and finally 

 Granchester, a spelling wliich has not yet been noted earlier than the 

 seventeenth century. 



The river on which Cambridge stands is known in various parts of its 

 course as Granta, Cam, and Rhee. Granta, the real name, is unique and 

 pre-English, meaning, probably, "fen river" or "muddy river". When 

 Cambridge came to be known as Cantehrigge, this was interpreted as "the 

 bridge over the Cante\ an artificial back-formation found from 1340 

 onwards. Similarly, the modern Cam is a later back-formation from the 



' This essay is based on a preliminary survey of material so far collected for a volume 

 on "The Place-names of Cambridgeshire" to be published by the EngUsh Place- 

 name Society. The discovery of further material may necessitate some modification 

 of detail. 



^ W. W. Skeat, The Place-Names of Cambridgeshire (Camb. Antiq. Soc. 1901). 



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