Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Pippes (sic) 1196–7 FF

• Pippeseia 1197 Forde 15

• Pippesie 13 Forde 15

• Pippesye 1337 Forde 15

• Pippesia, Pyppeseia, Pyppeseya 15 Forde

• Pepesia 1202 Cur

• Pipesie 1203 Cur 13 Forde 15

• Pipeseie 1204 Ch 1313

• Pypesye 1341 Forde 15

• Pipsford 1685 Hutch3 1708 Hutch1 1774 OS 1811

• Pipsford Fm 1838 TA

Etymology

'Pipp's well-watered ground, or dry spot in marshy ground', from an OE  pers.n. *Pipp and ēg, īeg . The pers.n. is adduced for a 10th-cent. bdy point in a Brk charter, pippes leage 939 (c.1240) S 448, v. PN Brk 660–1, 794. It is difficult to be precise about the significance of the second el. here: the farm lies on the slope of a small narrow valley (probably the cotte dene , cotta dene of one of the 11th-cent. Corscombe charters, v. f.ns. (b )infra ) in which a stream rises (a feeder of R. Hooke), and in the near vicinity are Horse Plot Withy Bed and Watery Way Coppice both 6″ infra . The change of the second el. to -ford seems to have been relatively late: a farm track crosses the valley just S of the farm.