Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Inholme t.Jas1 LRMB

Etymology

Inholms Gill (6″) [gil] is Inholme t. Jas 1 (LRMB ). For this word v. Inholms Copse supra 29. The second part of the name is the first example of an element which is curiously frequent in the Wealden area. This is the most westerly example that has been noted and it becomes really common only in the three eastern rapes. Early examples of it are very difficult to find.Much the earliest is the tenementum atte Gylle in a Court Roll (Add ) of 1404, referring probably to a place in the neighbourhood of the Dicker. Then we have one example from 1485, one from the 16th century, and it becomes common only in the 17th century. In 1658 (Survey ) we have mention of a 'gill or ditch,' in 1611 (Ct ) of the 'head of a gill,' in 1629 (SAC 61) we have the phrase 'down into a deep stony gill,' in 1653 (SAC 24, 191) 'the said brooke or gill,' and the word is commonly recognised in the dialects both of Sussex and Kent in the sense 'narrow wooded valley with a stream running through it' (NED s. v .). The coincidence of meaning with the Scandinavian gill or ghyll of the Lake District and North-Western England generally is noteworthy, but it is most improbable that we have a Scandinavian loan-word in Sussex. If it is that word, we could only explain it by some quite late migration of north- country folk to the Wealden area, bringing with them a word which spread rapidly over the countryside (cf. the note on tor s. n. Torberry supra 37), but there is no evidence for or likelihood of such a migration. The alternative and more likely possibility is that we have a native English word, peculiar to this area. Such a word is suggested in another connexion by Ekwall (PN La 53, s. n. Gooden), where he shows that there is likelihood of a Germanic stem *gulja which has given rise to Swedish göl , 'pond,' MHG gülle , 'pool,' LGer , EFris  göle , göl . This would give in Kent and Sussex OE  gyll , ME  gulle , gelle , but in late ME, and our only ME  spelling is a late one, we might well have the form gille . The ultimate meaning of the stem *gulja is difficult to determine. If one could, as Ekwall suggests, loc. cit. , link up the Norw  dial. gyl , 'chasm, ravine,' with these words we should have an exact parallel to the sense of the word in Kent and Sussex, but Torp (Nynorsk Etymologisk Ordbok s. v. gil ) takes this to be only a dialect variant of the more usual gil . Hellquist (Svensk Etymologisk Ordbok s. v. göl ) takes the gul -words to be from a gul - form parallel to and existing side by side with the more common gil - and presumably with something of the same meaning.