Blencogo

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Blencogo
Cumberland
New Inn, Blencogo - geograph.org.uk - 564931.jpg
The New Inn public house, Blencogo
Location
Grid reference: NY195478
Location: 54°49’8"N, 3°15’7"W
Data
Post town: Wigton
Postcode: CA7
Dialling code: 01697
Local Government
Council: Cumberland
Parliamentary
constituency:
Workington

Blencogo is a small farming village near Wigton in north-western Cumberland. It stands on the Solway Plain that runs down to the Solway Firth, off the B3502 Wigton to Silloth road. The village is a centre for growing osier willow for basketmaking and related crafts.

Name

The village's unusual name may derive from the ancient Cumbric language, comparable with the Welsh blaen for 'top' and cog for 'cuckoo', to which was later added the Old Norse haugr meaning 'hill'[1] Altrnatively the suffix may simply be the Cumbric plural inflexion seen today in the Welsh suffix -au and Breton -ou.[2] Thus "Cuckoos' Hill".

History

Blencogo first appears in writing around 1100 when the Lord Waltheof of Allerdale granted the barony of Blencogo to Odard de Logis.[3] Numerous land transfers are made to Holme Cultram Abbey in over the next 150 years.[4] Land transfers and grants for Blencogo also appear in the patent and charter rolls for Kings Edward III (1342), Richard II (1388), Henry IV (1399), Henry VI (1426), Edward IV (1474), and Henry VII (1543).

Outside links

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References

  1. Ekwall, Eilert (1922). The place-names of Lancashire. Manchester: Chetham Society. 
  2. Armstrong, A. M.; Mawer, A.; Stenton, F. M.; Dickens, B. (1950). The place-names of Cumberland. English Place-Name Society, vol.xx. Part 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 122. 
  3. Ritson, Joseph. Annals of the Caledonians, Picts, and Scots; and of Strathclyde, Cumberland, Galloway, and Murray, Volume the Second. Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Company, 1828. 235.
  4. Grainger, Francis & William Gershom Collingwood. The Register and Records of Holm Cultram. London: T. Wilson & Sons, 1929.