Pyecombe
Major Settlement in the Parish of Pyecombe
Historical Forms
- Picumba t.Wm2 Lewes 1180–1204 AD14202
- Pycombe t.Ed1 Ipm 1439 IpmR
- Piccumbe c.1100 AD14176 1305 FF
- Pickumbe 1248 Ass
- Pikcomb 1284 FA
- Pykcumbe 1296 SR
- Pykcoumbe 1332 SR
- Pykcombe 1476 IpmR
Etymology
This is a very difficult name. A pers. name Pic (a ) is a possibility (cf. PN BedsHu 47 and Ritter 96) but with such a first element we should have expected some such forms as Pikecumbe .The common word pike as a hill-name is definitely North Country, but there is the possibility that OE pic , 'point, pike ,' might have been used to describe something which thrust itself forward and if so we may perhaps take the term to have been applied to the south end of Wolstonbury Hill, which thrusts itself forward so prominently into the Pyecombe valley. If so the whole name means 'valley marked by a projecting hill,' v. cumb .