English Place-name Society

Survey of English Place-Names

A county-by-county guide to the linguistic origins of England’s place-names – a project of the English Place-Name Society, founded 1923.

Stretton, Stretton Hall, Stretton Lower Hall, Stretton Hall Fm & Stretton Mill

Major Settlement in the Parish of Tilston

Historical Forms

  • Stretton 12 Tab
  • Stretun 1260 Orm2
  • Stretton 1282 Court
  • Stretton iuxta Tilston 1287 Plea
  • Stretton Barton 1289 Court
  • Stretton Horton 1357 Tourn
  • Stretton on the Hill 1514 Orm2
  • Stretton iuxta Crue 1546 ChCert 1574
  • molendinum de Stretton 1345 Eyre
  • Stretton Hall 1724 NotCestr
  • Stretton Mill 1831 Bry
  • Stratton 1492 Plea
  • Mediolano 7 RavGeog
  • Sandonio 7 RavGeog

Etymology

'Farm or enclosure by a Roman road', from strǣt and tūn , with hall and myln . The Roman road from which Stretton is named would be Iter II of the Antonine Itinerary, Chester (Deva Legio xx Victrix ) – ten Roman miles – Bouium – twenty – Mediolanum – twelve – Rutunium – eleven – Wroxeter (Vrioconium ). Bouium (Bouio 4 (8 AntIt, 'place of the oxen', Lat  bovis , gen.pl. bovium ) was probably at Holt (Denbighshire) or Farndon 73infra . Cf. Beeston DEPN & 3 302. Mediolanum (Medialano , Mediolano 4 (8) AntIt, Mediolano 7 RavGeog, 'mid-plain', v. Archæologia xciii (40) was somewhere near Whitchurch Sa, according to Archæologia loc. cit. Whitchurch is nineteen or twenty miles from Chester via Farndon or Holt, and ten or eleven miles from Farndon. It has to be taken that the twenty Roman miles shown by AntIt between Bouium and Mediolanum is either an error of xx for x , or a sum of the two ten-mile legs of the route ChesterBouiumMediolanum . Whitchurch is about twenty- four miles from Condate (2 195) either by King Street (1 43, Route X) and Salinis (v. 2238), or by a direct route across Eddisbury hundred and through Tarporley (v. Petevinnisty 1 42–3, Route IX), and the distance of nineteen Roman miles given by Iter X of AntIt between Condate and Mediolanum is probably an error, xviiii written for xxiiii . Whitchurch is about twenty-three Roman miles from Wroxeter, the distance given by AntIt as between Mediolanum and Viroconium , and so the readings twenty Roman miles from Bouium and nineteen from Condate would give no cross-bearing, intolerable for a nodal point important in both AntIt and RavGeog, cf. 3238. Associated with the Mediolanum -Chester road, not identified but perhaps in Ch, is Sandonio 7 RavGeog, a place either between Mediolanum and Chester, or on a western branch-road from Mediolanum , v. Archæologia xciii 8–9 and 45. The MediolanumChester road exists or has been found at 109–495463 to 457515 and 407655 to 418595. I.D. Margary, Roman Roads in Britain 2 31, has attempted to trace the intervening part. Ekwall (DEPN) was misled by the error of Court 76 which reads Strecton for the Stretton of Plea (PRO, Chester 29/3/m1), cf. Mottershead 1203. v. Addenda.