From Place Names of the Hundred of Wirral.
Bromborough.—Before attempting to deal with the
etymology of this name, it is necessary to consider the
evidence for and against the identification of Bromborough
with the Brunanburh around {ymbe) which ^^ithelstan, in
A.D. 937, achieved his great victory over the allied Danes,
Irish, Scots, and Welsh. The site of the battle of Brunanburh
has long been a subject of controversy, but until
comparatively recently the claims of Bromborough to be
considered the scene of the sanguinary conflict, probably
owing to the former secludedness and insignificance of the
township, have scarcely been thought worth discussing.
Thus Gibson merely mentioned the fact that there was a
place in Cheshire called ' Brunburh,'- a statement which Bosworth ('A.-Sax. Diet.,' 1838) repeats. Thorpe, in his
edition of the Saxon Chronicle (1861), was unable to locate
Brunanhurh ; so was Earle in his {1865); but Plummer,
re-editing Earle's edition in 1889, queries the county of
Durham, as advocated in Bosworth and Toller's ' A.-Sax.
Diet.' (1882), and prefers, with Powell, to think that the
battle was fought in Lancashire. Thomas Baines, however,
in 'Lancashire and Cheshire, Past and Present,' 1867,
i. 316, was of the opinion that it took place near Bromborough
in Wirral.
Some correspondence on the subject is to be found in
the Athencuwi of the second half of 1S85. In the issue of
that journal for August 15, 1885, p. 207, Dr. R. F. Weymouth
entertains no doubt that Bromborough in Cheshire
is Brunanburh, and he speaks of " traces of a great battle in
that neighbourhood." In the issue for August 22, 1885,
p. 239, the Rev. T. Cann-Hughes points out that the question
has been discussed in the Cheshire Sheaf, that Mr.
John Layfield shows that on the Ordnance Survey for
Bromborough parish the ' Wargreaves
'
is mentioned as the
site of a battle between ^thelstan and the Danes in 937,
and that in the Proceedi?igs of the Chester Archceological
Society (vol. ii.) there is a paper by the secretary, Mr.
Thomas Hughes, in which it is stated that about 910 the
Princess ^thelfleda built a fortress at Brimsbury, which is
identified by local authorities with Bromborough. Another
contributor to this correspondence, however, asserts Brunanburh
to be in Dumfries-shire ; another claims it to be near
Axminster, while Mr. Herbert Murphy, writing in the
Athenmwi of October 3, 1885, p. 436, thinks that Mr.
Hardwick, in his 'Ancient Battlefields in Lancashire'
(1882), has made out an irresistible case in favour of the
country round Bamber Bridge, just south of Preston and
the Ribble, stress being rightly laid on the discovery, in
1840, in this locaHty of the famous Cuerdale collection of
coins.
On the other hand, Dr. Birch, in his ' Cartularium Saxonicum'
(1885, etc.), ii. viii., maintains that Brunan-burh is
a poetical alliteration for Brinnnga feld, which occurs in a
Latin charter of King ^thelstan, a.d. 938 (' Cart. Sax.,'
ii. 435), and, arguing that an English Broomfield or Bromfield must supply the site of the conflict, he suggests Broomfield
in Somersetshire. I must confess that this portion of
Dr. Birch's reasoning does not convince me. Brunnanburh
or Brunan-burh may be a form in which historical
accuracy is sacrificed to poetical demands ; but the fact
that a charter refers casually to the battle having been
fought at or in Bruninga-feld need not count for much.
This name strikes one as a generalization, meaning simply
'the plain of the Brunings,' i.e., of the descendants of
Brun ; and, in fact, this occurrence of Bruninga-feld might
seem to some to tend to the confirmation of the theory that
Cheshire witnessed the battle of Brunanburh, for in this
county we have, in comparative contiguity, at least three
places which may owe their name to an eponymic Brun—
namely, Bromborough (formerly Brunborough, Brunbree,
etc.), Brimstage (formerly Brunstath), and Brinnington.
Besides, as to Bruninga-feld representing a modern Bromfield
or Broomfield (Bartholomew's Gazetteer gives three
Bromfields and five Broomfields in England), it must not
be overlooked that a sharp labial, as/ is, is not so liable to
convert a preceding n into m as a flat labial like /^ is ;
and a Bromfield or Broomfield, just the same as a Bromley
or Brompton, may generally be taken to imply a place which
was overrun with broom.
In the map entitled ' Die Britischen Inseln bis auf
Wilhelm den Erobcrer, 1066,' in the Spruner-Menke 'Hand-
Atlas fiir die Geschichte des Mittelalters '
(1880), Brunanburh
is placed on the ' Meresige
' in about the present
position of Bromborough. A gentleman who has given
much study to the question on the spot, the Rev. E. D.
Green, Rector of Bromborough, wrote to Mr. Helsby, the
editor of Ormerod ('Hist. Chesh.,' 1882, ii. 427): "A
large tract of land near the seashore at Bromborough has
long been known by the name of IVargraves. This fact,
and that of the recent discovery (June, 1877) of a large
number of skeletons near the coast of the Dee, a few miles
further off, with other circumstances, combine to prove that
this parish was the unquestionable^site of ^thelstan's famous
victory over the Danes and their allies in 937."
There are one or two other points which would appear
to add strength to the theory of the Battle of Brunanburhhaving been fought in Cheshire. In the first place it is
probable—given the actual existence of a Brunanburh—
that there was but one Brunanburh in England in a.d. 937,
just as there is but one Bromborough to-day. Secondly,
the Dee and the Mersey, whose estuaries are divided by
the Wirral Peninsula, have, from time immemorial, been the
favourite points of embarkation for and debarkation from
Ireland ; it is, indeed, tolerably certain that the first Irish
missionaries to visit England landed in Wirral.^ Thirdly,
we know that a considerable Norse and Danish population
had already settled in Wirral when Anlaf's ships crossed the
Irish sea, and the Hiberno-Danish king could surely reckon
upon the support of his fellow-countrymen.
The fact that certain land at Bromborough is known as
the Wargraves is, however, of no significance. The Early
English werre^
' war '
(if that be the word intended), was
not in use at the time of the battle, 7vig being the ordinary
A.-Sax. word, and the one used in the poem-chronicle^
itself. The A.-Sax. grcrf (pi. gncfas)—whence Mod. Eng.
'grave'—certainly meant 'trench,' 'ditch,' or 'pit'; but
without evidence of early spelling it is not safe to say what
the war in Wargraves positively represents. (Is it the
A.-Sax. warn, 'defence,' or A.-Sax. wcer^ 'sea,' or A.-Sax.
waroth, 'shore,' or A.-Sax. wer, 'fishing-place'?) Besides,
the terminations ^/-az'tf ^wdi graves in place-names are usually
attributable to A.-Sax. graf (pi. gnifas),
'
grove.' But see
Wargrave in the West Derby Section.
The question may now be asked. Is the available evidence
fairly conclusive in favour of Bromborough being Brunanburh
? I am afraid that the answer must be that it is not.
And for this reason, namely, that the indefatigable researches
of Mr. T. T. Wilkinson'^ and Mr. Chas. Hardwick,-*
combined with the Cuerdale find of coins, leave scarcely
room for doubt that the great battle of a.d. 937 was fought
in the northern portion of that principal part of Lancashirewhich Hes between Ribble and Mersey. Mr. Wilkinson
makes out a very good case for the neighbourhood of
Burnley, which is on the river Brun,^ and was formerly
known as Brunley, while close by are Saxifield and Danes
House. Mr. Hardwick argues for the district south of
Preston, and points to such names as Bamber and Brindle.
A theory reconciling these two diverse views would make
out that the battle was actually fought at or near Burnley,
that the defeated Danes and Irish were pursued to their
ships in the Ribble, and that, when that river was reached,
the chest constituting the Cuerdale find had to be hurriedly
buried to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy.
The Cuerdale treasure-trove, it may be recalled, consisted
of (besides ingots, etc.) some 10,000 silver coins enclosed
in a chest. The greater number of the coins were Danish ;
a large number were Anglo-Saxon, and a smaller number
were French, the remainder being made up of Italian and
Oriental pieces.
^ The fact that specially interests us now,
however, is that a/l these coins ivere minted between a.d. 815
and A.D. 930, and they must consequently have been inhumed
within a comparatively short period after the latter
date, that is to say, about the time of the Battle of Brunanburh.
Worsae remarks,^ with needless caution, that "the
treasure must have been buried in the first half of the tenth
century."
As we have therefore decided that Bromborough is not
Brunanburh, it will be as well to note the early forms of
the name Bromborough as they are given by Mr. Green,
who writes -^
" In 912 we have it
' Brimburgh,' and before
the Conquest it is '
Brunsburg,'
' Brunnesburgh,' and
'
Brimesburgh
'
; in 1152
' Brunborough '
; tern. Pope
Honorius, ' Brumbure '
; tern. Edward I. (in its charter)
' Brumburgh
' and ' Bromburgh '
; in 1291
' Bromborch '
;
in 1548 '
Brombrogh,' 'Brumburgh,' and ' Brumborowe '
;
tern. Eliz. ' Brumbrow '
; in 17 19
' Brombrough,' and since ' Bromborough '
(pron. Brumborough)." The pre-Conquest
forms point to the personal name Erun^—A. -Sax. brihi, or
O. Nor. hriiim, 'brown,' 'dark'—combined with A.-Sax.
biirh or burg, or (J. Nor. borg, 'castle,' 'fortress';- and I
am therefore unable to agree with Mr. Irvine's derivation of
the first element of 'Bromborough,'^ viz., O. Nor. brunnr,
'
well,'
'
spring.' See Brimstage (Wirral Hundred) and
Bryn (West Derby Hundred).
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