Vm INTEODUCTION. 



The Celtic Brigantes, who long sturdily resisted the Ro- 

 man invasion, occupied the hills and valleys of the North of 

 England, and among them the Tees valley, for Celtic words 

 and place-names are in use there stUl, and these have more 

 the character of the Cymric and Gaelic than of any of the 

 other four Celtic dialects. 



The Celtic, therefore, may be said to form the lowest sub- 

 stratum of the building-up of the place-names in this part of 

 England. 



The Romans brought their own Latin with them into 

 Britain, but adopted from the conquered people many of 

 their names of the more prominent features of the country, 

 whilst they modified them to make them suitable to their 

 own organs of speech. 



Very few Roman and no compound Romano-Celtic place- 

 names, which are common in other parts of England and the 

 Continent, occur in Upper Teesdale. 



The Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and probably Swedes, Fri- 

 sians and others, after making frequent descents on the 

 English coasts, even during most of the time of the Roman 

 occupation, invaded them more frequently and in increasingly 

 greater force after the withdrawal of the formidable legions, 

 driving the great bulk of the Celts or Romanized Britons into 

 Cornwall and Wales, enslaving the remainder and establishing 

 themselves over the whole of the rest of the land.* 



* " Lappenberg's conjecture that tlie kindred tribes of Germany, and in particular 

 the Frisians, Pranks, and Longohards took part with the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons in 

 the subjugation and colonization of Britain is abundantly confirmed, and the truth of 

 the narratives of authors hitherto neglected, which tell us of Hencgest's conflicts in the 

 North, are vindicated by our local nomenclature. The history of the conquest of Britain 

 is written upon the face of the country." p. 160. 



" Procopius speaks of the Frisians as having settled in this country with the Angles, 

 as Friesthorpe and Frieston, in Lincolnshire, two Frystons, in Yorkshire, two Frisbys, 

 in Leicestershire testify The name occurs also in Suffolk. He speaks too of the 

 Wenlas or Vandals. There is also mention of Sceafa, a prince of the Wanilas or 

 Longobards. From these come the local names of Winlaton and Windlestone, 

 county Durham." p. 158. Haigh's Conquest of England by the Saxons. London. 

 1861. 



