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.

Braunton

Major Settlement in the Parish of Braunton

Historical Forms

  • Branton(a) 1086 DB 1242 Fees782
  • Brauntone 1269 Exon
  • Brampton(e) 1157 RBE 1302 BM
  • Bramton(a) 1167,1172 P 1219 Ass 1229–35 Ch
  • Brompton 1226 Pat

Etymology

On the basis of the forms for the town alone one would without hesitation suggest that the name was of the common Brampton type from OE  brame -tūn with the usual confusion between brame and brom and assimilation of mt to nt . In the Geld Roll forms for the Hundred-name, however, we have forms Branctone , Bractone . Unless these are purely erroneous they necessitate a new etymology. They have been explained in two ways, (i) by assuming derivation from the saint's name Branoc (cf. Branscombe infra 620) found in St Brannock 's Well in the immediate neighbourhood, but a compound of a saint's name with tun is unparalleled and we should in any case expect it to be in the genitival form, (ii) Blomé (15) suggests an unrecorded river- name Brannoc of the same type as that found in Craddock infra 538. No certainty is possible, and it may well be that the Geld Roll forms are incorrect.