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.

Stancill

Early-attested site in the Parish of Wadworth

Historical Forms

  • Steineshale 1086 DB
  • Stansale 1199 Ch 1232 Aid 1303 Banco 1328 FF 1342 FA 1428
  • Stanshal 1218 FF
  • Stansall(e) 1303 KF 1316 Vill 1321,1410 Arm 1403 Pat 1596 FF

Etymology

Goodall 269 suggests that Stancill is from an OE  pers.n. Stān and halh 'nook of land', but this is doubtful, since this OE pers.n. is not evidenced with any certainty (cf. Stansfield iii, 177infra ) and apart from the DB spelling there is in the somewhat incomplete evidence a regular absence of the normal ME  gen.sg. ending in -es . It is in fact more likely to be a compound of ON  steinn or OE  stān and ON  salr, perhaps as an adaptation of an earlier OE  stān -sæl (cf. sele 1 ); in either case it means 'stone dwelling-hall' and may well refer to a Roman villa, the site of which is some 200 yards north-east of the present farm (1″ O.S. 103–6196).