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.

Hunderthwaite

Major Settlement in the Parish of Romaldkirk

Historical Forms

  • Hundredestoit(h) 1086 DB
  • Hundresthuait 1184 RichReg 1302 Pat
  • Hunderthuait, Hunderthwayt 1208 Ass 1316 Vill 1352 FF
  • Hundrethwaite 1285 KI c.1300 RichReg
  • Hundredthwaite 1316 IpmR
  • Hondirthwayt 1400 YI

Etymology

Lindkvist suggests that the first element is OE  hundred (ON  hundrað ) 'a hundred, a land division' but if this is correct we have here the only reference to a 'hundred' in YNR.

We are told, however, that in 1070 an infinite multitude of Scots under Malcolm assailed Teesdale and laid it waste, slaying several English nobles at a place 'called in English Hundredeskelde , in Latin centum fontes ' (SD). Hundredeskelde may be identical with Hunder Beck (now in Cotherstone parish); at any rate the first element is identical with that of Hunderthwaite and despite the Latin centum fontes it is probably a pers. n. ON  Hun (d )rað or Hunrøðr or less probably OE  Hūnrēd . An intrusive unetymological -d - is evidenced also in OIcel  Hundólfr by the side of Húnólfr (Orig. Island , i. 219, 271).v. þveit .