Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Legre 1086 DB

• Leire c.1130 LeicSurv 1195 P 1196 ChancR 1247 Ass 1430 Peake 1535 VE

• Leirra 1208 FF

• Leghere 1176 P

• Leyr(e) 1221 Fine 1236 Cur 1230×60 Goodacre 1265 Misc 1469 Wyg 1582 LEpis

• Leyra 1220 MHW 1227 RHug l.13 Goodacre e.14 Wyg

• Layer 1502 MiscAccts

• Layr(e) 1510 Visit 1517 AAS 1546 MinAccts 1723 LML

Etymology

Most probably, the place-name Leire was in origin Legra , the pre- English name of the stream on which the village stands, a name identical with or related to that of the river Loire in France (Gaulish Ligeris , perhaps from a root *lig 'marsh', v. Bahlow 300s. n. Lieg). This would have given an OE river-name *Legor (or *Ligor ). William of Malmesbury, when writing c.1125, claimed that Leicester (Ligoraceaster c.955, Legraceastre c.1000) was named a Legra fluvio præterfluente 'from the river Legra which flows past (the town)'. However, Leicester stands on the river Soar of which Legra is a tributary. A more likely explanation for Leicester's name is that an OE folk-name *Legora or (*Ligora ) 'the dwellers on the river Legor (or Ligor)' was given to those people who lived around what was to become Leicester and some distance to its south (including the Leire district) and that it was the folk- name rather than the river-name which was used in forming the toponym of their principal settlement, v. Leicester (Lei 11–3). Note that the lost Legham (with hām or hamm ), which appears associated with the holding of Hugo de Grentmaisnil in Leicester in the Domesday Survey of 1086, may incorporate a reduced form of the river-name as its specific. Thus for Leire, as perhaps for Great Glen (Lei 479) and Glen Parva supra , a pre-English river-name became attached to a riverine settlement. See also Ekwall RN xlii and Forsberg 113.