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The Celtic languages of the British continued to be used up to the coming of the Saxon peoples whose numbers were made up of Jutes, Angles, Southern Danes and natives of Jutland. As we have seen, the early Indo-European culture spread across Europe and with it came the beginnings of a variety of modern languages. The Germanic language of the Saxons had its roots in the Elbe River region around 3000 years ago, apart from a distant common origin the Celtic and Germanic languages have very little in common. The Old English language of the Saxons is ascribed roughly to the period between AD 500 up to the Norman Conquest, this language did not assimilate the Celtic language. This is possibly because of a racial/ethnic arrogance by the Saxons or perhaps the native Britons were more adept at learning English than the Anglo-Saxons were at learning the indigenous Celtic. The Old English language gave way to Middle English at the end of the 11th century and Modern English took centre stage around AD 1500.

The Saxon invaders pushed the Celtic speaking peoples out of what is now England into Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland, the only one of these regions not to have an extant Celtic language today is Cornwall (the last native speaker died in 1777). This gradual cut-off in the use of Celtic descriptions for our landscape provides a useful tool in the use of etymology for dating purposes. Although the majority of place, and topographical names, have been left to us from the Saxon, Scandinavian and Norman eras, we do have a small number of Celtic names that can be readily ascribed to the older Welsh language. This method of dating is certainly not foolproof, the etymology of our native languages is extremely complex, the adoption of known languages within a specific time-frame does allow room for the educated guess however.

The geography of our area can be seen as a good reason for our local population to remain insular, the local inhabitants were still largely of an Iron Age culture at the coming of the Saxons and would therefore retain the traditional British descriptions of their environment.  

To ascribe a settlement such as Admergill firmly to the early British people is difficult at the best of times and, where etymology is the only evidence, we are largely in the realms of  a 'best fit' scenario. My delvings into the origins of the name of Admergill unfortunately fall into the latter category –  nevertheless I will have a go!


Firstly, there is a local legend that Admergill means Arthur’s Water – the fact that there is a neighbouring area known as Utherstone Wood (SD 855 409) is used to substantiate this (Uther Pendragon being King Arthur’s father). Some devotees of the Arthurian Legends have stated that our area has strong links with the fabled King Arthur – both Pendle Hill and Blacko Hill are said to have played a significant role in the laying of the dragon spirit. However, I have been unable to find any reliable clues in the etymology of Admergill to verify an Arthurian connection. Utherstone is the colloquial pronunciation of the name which is actually Uderstone, this possibly derives from the Anglicised Celtic word hudd for a person who works within the woods ie; the surname Huddart being a keeper of animals (deer) within the woods. To digress, I have wondered if the name hudd in this context was applied to the ubiquitous British deity of Robin, thus giving us Robin Hood or Robin within the woods – this would be synonymous with the pagan ideology of the earth-spirit of The Green Man, and 'Robin Goodfellow.' Rightly, or wrongly, I do not hitch my waggon to the theory that assigns the meaning of Arthur to the Admergill area.

A more viable explanation of the name, probably the most viable to many people, is simply Eadmer’s Gill where Eadmer would be the Saxon head of the settlement.

Alternatively we could have Ead Mere Gill where ‘mere’ is either the Anglicised mercle’’meaning boundary – possibly a stream boundary; the later connotation of mere describing a water-related area; the Celtic mer meaning to rub away or do harmor the Old English mare/maere (from where we get our nightmare’ meaning  goblin. The naming of a settlement, or topographical feature, after the Saxon occupier was common practise (unlike the Normans who took the name of an area and applied it to themselves). There are many precedents for this in our area, a couple of these being Elfwin-thorpe (a lost hamlet in Barnoldswick), Eller’s – slack (Elslack), Ele’s-sagh (Elle's-shaw (wood), now Sand Hole at Foulridge), Hamel’s-don Hill (Hameldon Hill at Hapton), Barnulf’s-wick (Barnoldswick) and Pada's-ham (Padiham).

In the west of Lancashire, near Garstang, there is a place called Bleasdale (SD 570 450), nearby stands a stone circle dating approximately to 1800 BC, the circle is situated on an area of land known as Admarsh. The church at Bleasdale is dedicated to Saint Eadmer, a Dark Ages saint who does not appear in the Church’s later official ‘Saints List. This is possibly because Eadmer would be canonised before close scrutiny became the norm in later times. It would appear that the words Eadmer and Admarsh both have a common derivation from the Celtic A'dmawr.’ In their book Lives of the British Saints: Part One Gould and Fisher state that A'dmawr originates in the Old Irish word o'd which became a'dh, aodh and haodh. These names appear to relate to the Brythonic Celt udd and the Latin dominus thus giving the meaning of Great Master to A'dmawr.


It would appear that there was a Welsh Prince named A'dd Mawr who controlled certain British lands sometime in the Early Medieval period. I have read that an A'dd Mawr was the founder of the modern Druid movement – I have also read that the Druids had no singular founder! Just above the hamlet of Admergill is a deep, tree filled clough known as Wiccan Clough, it has been suggested by local people that this refers to the White or Old religion and must have had a Druidic connection. The only suggestion I can offer here is that a local dispute between landowners in 1560 ended in the court ordering one of the protagonists to remove the wicken that he has wrongly planted the wicken being a small plantation of mountain-ash trees on the Holme at the Water Meetings. I have also seen a 19th century record where a hedgerow is referred to as the wicken. The clough of trees’would at least seem to offer a viable explanation for the clough carrying the Wiccan name. It would be no surprise if this context of the word wicken is related to the term wicker-work used to describe woven willow items.

Further to the suggestion that Admergill possibly derives from the early A'dmawr it is worth mentioning that on the land of nearby Malkin Tower Farm is a very large hollow feature known as both Haynslack and Mawkin Hole (SD 866 424). These two terms appear to emanate from different periods within our history although they both exactly describe the topography of the site. The hollow is funnel-shaped with a narrow mouth, it is situated hard up against the ancient Lancashire/Yorkshire County boundary along which the Black Dyke stream flows. In the bottom of this hollow, at the northern end, is a natural spring, this has been walled around at some point in the past. The site falls within the very eastern-most tip of the Forest of Pendle. The Haynslack name has two derivations; the first is from the Saxon where haie means a hedged place. The Norse word slack is commonly used in our area for a description of  a hollow – especially on a hillside.As a matter of interest I know of only two other Hayn Slacks within the area; one is at Black Lane Ends, Colne and the other at Robin Hood's House on Red Spa Moor on the slopes of Boulsworth Hill - all three of the Hayn Slacks are immediately adjacent to the Lancashire and Yorkshire boundary. From this is it possible to deduce that the name Heynslack usually refers to a hollow feature on a boundary, the boundary actually being the hein or fence rather than the hollow being fenced all around as I have previously postulated.

Aerial photography shows that the outer lip of the large hollow has been thrown-up, in other words it had a man-made banking around the rim. This could very well have had a wooden pale fence surmounting it, running around the perimeter, and thus providing an excellent enclosed area in which to hold animals. The fencing could have been carried into the Norman period when the forest was a deer hunting ground, it was common practise to provide enclosed areas within the forest, with gaps (or leaps) in the fencing to allow deer to enter the enclosure but not escape. Enclosures for holding livestock were also used from the Neolithic period and this hollow feature, ideal for the purpose, would have had a long continuity of use.


The other hay or heyn connotation is from the Scandinavian heyne meaning a body of fresh water. This is also interesting as the funnel shape of the hollow would easily hold a large amount of water, a small dam across the mouth would enable the stream within the hollow to fill it to at least a few feet in depth. This would form a shallow lake with enough depth to act as (say) a fishery. This hollow is near to Malkin Tower Farm, this was once the rectory farm of Colne Parish Church, it was common for ecclesiastic houses to have a fishery in order to boost their food supply. As a matter of passing interest at this point, it is worth mentioning a possible origin of the name Malkin - Maelecan is a double diminutive of a Celtic word with the meaning of ‘shaven one’ suggested to commonly apply to a monk. Malkin was an ecclesiastic settlement from at least the 15th century, to qualify for a Celtic name it must have been either a British ecclesiastical site or the Saxons assimilated the name into their own language and it passed into later Middle English.

The alternative name given to the hollow feature of Mawkin Hole is the old local name given to the site (there is a Mankin Hole at Todmorden) and is shown as such on a Malkin Tower Farm deed. The name of Maw is difficult to pin down within this context as it had a Celtic origin but became assimilated into the later English languages. Mawr is a common word in Welsh and is often associated with topographical features such as hills (Bryn Mawr), here it means great. By the time of the Saxons Maw had replaced the Old English word maga which had the meaning of  stomach or open mouth – figuratively this gave a description of yawning chasm, an extremely apt name for our hollow. Moving into the Middle English we have an explanation for the term Maw-kin in gaping-like’ and Hole meant just that, hence we have the accurate topographical description of Gaping Hole. There is also the temptation here to suggest that the kin could be king giving Maw-King, as we have the possibility of a Welsh Prince at Admergill this is worth a fleeting thought, it appears to be rather fanciful, however.

In the early 1400s a popular card game, known as Maw, was introduced into England from Ireland, I have no idea why the game was so named. It is very unlikely that we have in this use of the word Maw a fitting reason for the long-puzzled over origins of the name 'Malkin Tower' – the fabled central site in relation to the famous Pendle Witch Trials of 1612; I intend to cover the whole of this subject from a muniment perspective in a later book.  


It is perhaps of interest to note that the settlement of Admergill is the only one to carry this name in the whole of our islands, the Saint Eadmer and Admarsh sites at Bleasdale are the closest in name and are not very far in distance to the west of Admergill. It is possible, according to the etymology at least, that Admergill shares  a commonality with the Bleasdale site.


Admergill may also share the same name as Utherstone Woods. This would not surprise me in the slightest, Utherstone is a short walk down the valley and, with the Water Meetings earthworks below, Ring Stone Hill sitting adjacently and the number of Roman coins found here, the two sites must have shared a common history. In the valley between the two sites is the ancient camp of Bell Wood at Casterclough (SD 850 419). I do not know the date of this camp, its present name suggests 45 to 300 AD although this shows only the date of its last being used.



It is likely that Water Meetings, Casterclough and Admergill would be occupied over a common period and it is unthinkable that there was no interaction between them. It may be worth mentioning that the Gaelic word Aidmheil means faith or religion and another Gaelic word (of the same root) Admhail means acknowledgement.


It would be satisfying to see proof that the three sites are connected and that Admergill was actually inhabited by a Celtic noble of very high status - and was therefore an important area within our history. I will leave it to Whitaker's History of Whalley to finish this conjecture on the subject of the Admergill name:

"D  which means vir nobilis, beautus, locuples, is never used as a proper name but in composition"

In other words the Anglo-Saxon word Edis had the meaning of 'noble' and was always used as a prefix. Hence we have the name of Edisford Bridge, a village near Clitheroe, with the meaning of 'The Nobleman's Ford.' Applied to the name of Ad Mer Gill we may still have a Saxon name, as postulated above with Eadmer's Gill, though the Ead now has the derivation of 'noble.' We therefore have a description for the site, where the Saxon 'mer' is a boundary, of 'The Nobleman's Boundary.' Alternatively, where the Celtic 'mer' is to rub out or do harm, we have 'The Valley of the Harmful Nobleman,' this conjures up a picture of an Anglo-Saxon warrior placed by his peers in a strategic spot so as to form a defence against some threat.

Whatever the truth of the matter may be I am sure that the small area of the Admergill Valley has been significant within local topographical politics for a very long time.
                                                                           
John A Clayton

                         

Celtic Admergill