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.

Six Hills

Early-attested site in the Parish of Willoughby on the Wolds

Historical Forms

  • Segs Hill 1677 Thoroton
  • Sex or Segs Hill 1806 King
  • Seggeswold c.1200 Garendon 1290 Abbr 1302 Ass

Etymology

Six Hills is Segs Hill 1677 Thoroton, Sex or Segs Hill 1806 King, and is almost certainly a corruption of the earlier Seggeswold c. 1200Garendon , 1290 Abbr, 1302Ass , n.d. AD iv, i.e. 'the wold belonging to a man named Secgge .' The open character of the district appears in a passage in the Historia Monasterii Selebiensis , referring to the late 11th century, which describes how Stephen abbot of Whitby, coming from the south, met Benedict abbot of Selby, coming from the north, in campo qui Segesuuald dicitur (Coucher Book of Selby , Yorkshire Archaeological Association i, 21). Presumably the abbots were travelling along the Fosse Way.

Places in the same Parish