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.

St Austin's Well

Other OS name in the Parish of Cerne Abbas

Historical Forms

  • a spring, which still retains the name of Augustine's Well' 1774 Hutch1
  • 'the pure fountain of St Augustine' 1815 Hutch3

Etymology

, ' a spring , which still retains the name of Augustine 's Well '1774Hutch1, 'the pure fountain of St Augustine '1815 Hutch3 , so named from the legend that St Augustine founded the abbey here , v. discussion of the popular etymology of the par . name supra . The same spring is described as ' a spring called Silver Well , which St Austin formerly produced at Cerne ' in an account of another legend in which an East Anglian prince Eadwald becomes a hermit here c. 870 ( in 1535–43 Leland , retold in Hutch 3 4 18 ) .