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.

Merstham

Major Settlement in the Parish of Merstham

Historical Forms

  • æt Mearsæt ham, mearsætham 947 BCS820
  • Mersetham t.EdwConf KCD896 c.1150
  • Merstan 1086 DB
  • Mersteham 12th Lewes173 1237 Cl 1255 Pap 1279 Ass 1286 SRSi
  • Merstam 1202 P
  • Merstham 1229 FF
  • Mestham 1207 FF
  • Mestham al. Merstham 1568 FF
  • Maestham 1756,1757 ChipsteadParReg
  • Mersham 1225 Ass 1607 SrWills
  • Marsham 1281 FF
  • Merysham c.1505 SrWills
  • Mersham 1570 SR
  • Mearstham al. Mestham 1680 Recov

Etymology

This is a difficult name, and the forms in this original charter are too good to allow of much latitude for conjecture. They hardly allow, for example, of our supposing that mear is for OE  mere , 'pool,' or mǣre , 'boundary,' and they make it unlikely that sæt is for sæte , 'dwellers,' or the gen. pl. sǣtna , which we should expect in such a compound. Dr Ritter suggests that mearsæt is for mearhset , 'horse-paddock,' with early loss of h in the compound. This is possible, though there are two difficulties. First, as Dr Ritter points out, mearh is a purely poetic word in OE, so far as our records go, but that is not perhaps a serious difficulty in a name which must belong to the earliest period of the settlement. Secondly, sæt for set is unusual, though dialectal æ for e is not without parallel. Schram (ZONF ii, 201) records field- names Lamsete and Nytsete from Norfolk, which may be parallel compounds of OE  set (pl. setu ) with lamb and neat respectively.If this is correct, the whole name means 'homestead by the horse-enclosure.'