Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Abeleng 1086 DB

• Hebbelenz, Hebbelench c.1086 EveA&B 1190

• Abbelench 1227 FF

• Habbelench 1273 FF 1275 SR 1297 Pat 1340 NI 1346,1428 FA

• Habelinge 1275 Ass

• Ab(e)lench 1316 Ipm 1431 FA 1544 Wills

• Hablenche 1477 IpmR 1492 Ipm

• Hoblench 16th,17th Wills

• Abs Lench 1704 Marr

Etymology

The Lench of this name, Rous Lench infra 149 in the same hundred, and of Church Lench, Atch Lench and Sheriffs Lench in Esch Hundred infra 330 and of Lenchwick in Fishborough Hundred infra 264 is an unsolved problem. The OE  form would seem to have been Lenc . The late W. H. Stevenson in a letter to the Times Literary Supplement (Nov. 9, 1922) called attention to this group of names and suggested that perhaps it was the name of a stream, now lost. Examination of the topography of the places in question shows however that they cannot be named from any single stream, and indeed tend to be rather away from streams. They cover an area some 5 miles long and 2 miles broad, and lenc would seem rather to have been the name of a district, most of the places which take their names from it tending to be on relatively high ground. We may note also that somewhere in the Lench area there was a lencdun (BCS 124).

The name must be the same as the Lench discussed by Ekwall in PN La 65. The forms of that name are very late but he suggests that it is the same as the dialectal lench used in Cheshire of 'a seam of rock-salt,' and in Derbyshire of 'a ledge of rock' (v. EDD s. v .) and that it is connected with OE  hlinc , 'ridge.'

It must be formed from another grade *hlank of the same stem. h before l is lost already at times in Old English itself (cf. Sievers, A. S. Gramm. 217, n. 2) as in lið for hlið in the quotation s. n. Cornwood supra 54. There is evidence for such a place-name element in the lanke , 'seite,' in Westphalia (Jellinghaus, Die Westfälischen ON 126) and possibly in one or two other place-names given by Förstemann (ON  ii. 35, s. v. lank ).The relation of the two words is similar to that of OE  hlinc , 'link, bond,' and hlence , 'link-armour.'

Abbots Lench was first distinguished from the other Lenches by the prefixing of the pers. name Aebba or an unrecorded Hæbba , a pet-form of such an OE  name as Hēahbeorht (cf. Ab Kettleby (Lei) for a similar addition). This was corrupted to Hob and last of all to Abbot .