Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Tur(r)oc, Turochā, Turocham, Thurrucca, Turruccā 1086 DB

• T(h)urroc, T(h)urroch, T(h)urrok, T(h)urrock 1195 CurR

• T(h)urrock Parua 1201 Abbr

• Westthurrock 1219 FF

• Estthurrock 1264 Misc

• T(h)urrock Breonzun 1291 Bodl

• T(h)urrock Braunsoun 1323 For

• T(h)urrock Breanzoun 1326 FF

• Litelthurroke 1488 FF

• T(h)or(r)ok 1247,1286 FF 1248 Ass

• West Thorruk al. Thourruk Brianzoun 1310 Ipm

• Westthurhok 1317 ib

• West Hurrock 1408 ADi 1443,1472 ECP

• Furrok 1485 ECP

• Westharrock Flete 1508 Pat

• Lytelthroke 1523 SR

• West- (t)horke 1535 VE 1552 EAS(NS)ii

• Briencun (1198 FF)

Etymology

This must etymologically be the same word as OE  þurruc , 'a small ship, the bottom part of a ship.' (Cf. PNEW 474.) The word occurs in the form thurrok in Chaucer's Persones Tale , on which Tyrwhitt, Poetical Works of Chaucer (1852 ed.), 208, has a note, quoting from a 15th-century author: “there ys a place in the bottome of a shyppe, wherin ys gathered all the fylthe that cometh into the shyppe, and it is called in some contre of thys londe a thorrocke. ” Cf. also 'thurrok of a shyppe sentina ' (PromptParv 493). The word is also found later in the dialects of Nf and Lei in the sense of 'a heap (of muck or dirt),' and it must be used here in some such sense with reference to the marshes near the Thames. A passage in Camden, ed. Gibson, 1772 (i, 350), suggests the type of landscape: “In the marshy grounds adjoining to the Thames, about West Thurrock, Dagenham, etc., great numbers of subterraneous trees have been discovered by the inundations of the Thames…they were found with roots, boughs, and some part of the bark.” Cf. Throckmorton (PN Wo 169–70). Little Thurrock was formerly East while West Thurrock was Brianzoun from the family of Briencun (1198 FF) from Briençun (Normandy).