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.

Rodham Fm, Rodham Drove

Early-attested site in the Parish of March

Etymology

Rodham Fm, Rodham Drove (6″). Rodham is a modern spelling of what the fenmen call a roddon , i.e. a meandering bank of laminated silt. Major Gordon Fowler suggests that it is allied to the word roddin or rodden which Wright (EDD) gives as denoting a narrow road, path, or sheep track, but this is very doubtful as that word is distinctively North Country.