Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Eccleshale 1200–10 YCh 1251 Ass 1328 Banco 1342 FF 1405 YI

• Eccleshall 1272 Abbr 1532 FF 1641 Rates

• Eccheleshalla 1200–18 YCh1279

• Ecclessale in Seffeld 13 YDxvi,84

• Ecclissale 1228 Hall

• Ecklishal 1252 FF

• Ekelsale 1297 LS

• Ecclssale 1375 Hall

• Ecclesall 1502 FF

• ye Byerlow of Ecclesall 1587 Dep

• Ecclesall barley 1658 WillY

• Ecclesall Byerlow 1720 SheffD

• Ekeleshall 1503 BM

• Eckersall 1543 FF

Etymology

The el. Eccles - is found in several other YW p.ns., Ecclesfield 245, Eccleshill iii, 259, Exley iii, 91, (Keighley) pt. vi, and a lost Ecclesdo ii, 229, Eccles f.n. iii, 271 infra , as well as in those of other north Midland counties. Each name has a similar run of spellings for the first el. and it is therefore unlikely that Ecclesall has a different origin from Ecclesfield; for Ecclesall Ekwall suggests an OE  pers.n. Eccel , for Ecclesfield the Brit  word eclēs 'a church'. The frequency of occurrence of the el. would favour the latter rather than the pers.n. It is Brit eclēsia 'church', a loan from Lat  ecclesia ; cf. EPN i, 145. There is no independent evidence that this word was taken over into colloquial use in OE; as a loan it appears to be very localised, and the best explanation of its occurrence in p.ns. is that in each case it denoted a British church and that the British word for the building was taken over, perhaps as a name rather than an appellative, by the heathen English. Ecclesall would denote 'nook of land where a British church stood', v. halh . The halh here denotes 'hollow in a hillside'; the site of the present church is at the upper end of a small valley running up the great hill on the west side of the R. Sheaf.On the affix Bierlow 'township', v. býjar-lǫg and Brampton Bierlow 106supra .