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11:36 pm July 4, 2009
| JonFlower
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| C24 Regular | posts 95 |
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Hi all,
Can anyone translate, or suggest, what the following place names actually mean? Both are small locality names in South East Cornwall, that I believe date back to the days of the old tongue.
- Fursnewth (or Fursenewth)
- Lestitha
They appear on the following:
http://www.nationalarchives.go…..;cid=-1#-1
Many Thanks.
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9:22 am July 5, 2009
| marhak
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Fursnewth is Cornish: fos nowyth, 'new wall/bank', with historic forms: Fosnewit 1086, Fosneweth 1196; Fosnewyth 1329; Fosnewyth 1410; Fos nowyth c.1520. (SWF (all forms): Fos Nowyth)
Lestitha is harder to deal with. Its historic forms are: Lanstineda, Lansteneda 1201; Lanstenetha 1357, 1428; Lanstynetha 1357, Lestetha 1561. Without looking deeper, the site never seems to have been a church site and I suspect that the Lan- part of the name is more likely to be nans, 'valley' (the site stands on a hillspur above two valleys). This L/N confusion is common in place-names (e,g. Lanteglos = Nant eglos; Newlyn = Lu lyn). The second element is puzzling: is its initial S or T? It would be curious if Old Cornish 'nant' has assibilated and the second element hasn't in the 1201 examples. At the moment, I can't pin this word down, or even its proper form. A personal name is a possibility but that's as far as I can go for now. Suggestions, anyone? (SWF – on current evidence: Nanstynedha?)
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7:19 pm July 5, 2009
| JonFlower
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| C24 Regular | posts 95 |
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Marhak,
Thanks for your reply.
As it happens, Lestitha was my stomping ground when I was growing up. To our knowledge there has never been a church there, but there was an old monument – "Lestitha well"… which, allegedly, was recently destroyed by some of the present owners of the place. So much for the protection of Cornish Heritage.
There are several references in the St Cleer Parish Records:
http://freepages.genealogy.roo…..t5/stc.htm
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9:49 pm July 5, 2009
| marhak
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The well is marked on the map but I haven't seen it for years. Amazingly, none of the books on Cornish holy wells (from Quiller Couch to Meyrick to Straffon) seem to mention it. Perhaps there's a mention in one of Henderson's works. The problem is that all too few of these sites have any statutory protection – in 1988, "English" Heritage promised a complete review of Scheduled Ancient Monuments within 5 years. 21 years later, we're still waiting.
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