Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• capellam voc. Sainct Johnes Chappel de Groyne 1582 CWii

• the Groyne 1618 DKRxxxviii

• St Johns Chappell of the Groyne 1649 ParlSurv

• the Chappell of Grune 1664 LRMB

Etymology

This is the name of the shore here, and the name must have reference to some defensive sea wall. v. groyne (NED). The forms quoted above disprove finally Sir Frederic Madden's identification of this place (cited by J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon in their notes to vv. 709 ff. of Sir Gawayn and the Green Knight) with the Green Chapel of that poem.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that in Elizabethan England the Spanish port of La Coruña (Corunna) was known as the Groine (Everyman ed. of Hakluyt iv, 309 ff.).