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.

Hallam & Hallam Head, formerly Nether Hallam & Upper Hallam

Early-attested site in the Parish of Sheffield

Historical Forms

  • Hallun 1086 DB
  • Hallum 1202 FF 1299 Baild 1359 YDxii,249 1366 Hlm 1383 Ipm
  • Hallom 1496 SheffMan 1638 SessnR
  • Hallam(e) 1580,1636 WillY 1641 Rates
  • Halum 1384 Hlm 1442 Comp
  • Halome 1440 SheffMan 1528 Testv 1562 SheffD
  • Halom 1533,1588 FF
  • Halam 1605 FF

Etymology

Although the form Hallum rather than Halum appears here to be original, the spellings of Hallamshire 101supra , where Halum - is found much earlier, leaves a measure of doubt as to whether this is the case. Some weight must however be attached to the spellings of Hallam itself, and we should take the name as an old dat.plur. of OE  hall 'a rock' (Napier, Old English Glosses 4111) or ON  hallr 'a rock, a boulder' (v. -um ). This seems preferable to OE  hallum 'at the halls', dat.plur. of hall (even though DB records that Earl Waltheof had had a hall there), as hall is of rare occurrence in pre- Conquest p.ns., or to OE  halum , healum 'at the nooks of land', dat.plur. of halh (which should have given a modern Halam ). Nether and Upper Hallam were formerly separate townships between the Rivelin and the Porter adjoining Sheffield. Attempts have been made to place the village of Hallam a little to the south of Hallam Head (grid 111–3086), and a deed of mortgage of 1562 (SheffD 242) speaks of lands “in the village or townshipe of Halome…or within the precyncte of the same village or Townshipe of Halome”. Hall (ib 245–7) therefore argues that there was a village of Hallam and that it was near Hallam Head; if village here means a cluster of houses and not a legal equivalent of vill (or township as it is stated in the document) it certainly refers to the Hallam Head district, but this scattered collection of houses (as it was 50 years ago) is not necessarily on an ancient village site; cf. also HntS i, 143 ff. The evidence for any village or town settlement as such is wanting. In DB Waltheof had had an aula in Hallam, but Hallam is also described as a manor 10 leugae or leagues long and 8 leugae broad; it had 16 berewicks with the two manors of Attercliffe and Sheffield as 'inland'. F. Charlesworth (HntS v, 208 ff) has argued that the aula was on the site of Sheffield castle (which is reasonable), that DB Escafeld is to be identified with Sheffield Park over the river and not with the old town of Sheffield, and that Hallam itself was the name of the old town round the castle. The most reasonable interpretation, however, is that Hallam was simply the name of the whole district of Waltheof's manors and never that of a nucleated village; this would also account for the continued use of Hallam as a district name (with shire added in the same way as Bierlow is to Ecclesall, not as a p.n. affix but to describe an administrative district). There is no need to suppose that the town where Waltheof's hall stood before the Conquest was called Hallam, for Sheffield itself is part of the 'inland' of the manor of Hallam; Sheffield and Attercliffe would be the inner or home manors of Waltheof's estates, where his aula might be expected to stand, and Ecclesall (which is not mentioned in DB) would form a large part of the outer lands.

Places in the same Parish

Early-attested site

Other OS name