Egglescliffe
| Egglescliffe | |
| County Durham | |
|---|---|
 Egglescliffe Green | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NZ421131 |
| Location: | 54°30’43"N, 1°21’0"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 8,559 (2011) |
| Post town: | Stockton-On-Tees |
| Postcode: | TS16 |
| Dialling code: | 01642 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Stockton-on-Tees |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Stockton South |
Egglescliffe is a village in County Durham, sitting in Teesdale, on the north bank of the River Tees, which is the county's border with the North Riding of Yorkshire.
The village had a population of 8,559 at the 2011 Census.
Egglescliffe has asecondary school, a light industrial estate, two railway stations and golf club. Other villages in the parish include Urlay Nook, Sunningdale, Orchard and a development on the former Allens West MOD site.[1]
The village stands on top of a hill with the River Tees at the bottom, overlooking Yarm on the Yorkshire bank. There is a Church of England primary school, small kids play area, farms, allotments and a public house (called the Pot and Glass).
Name
The name 'Egglescliffe' has been characterised by Victor Watts as "a difficult name".[2][3] The name is first attested in an 1172 copy of a 1085 charter, as Eggasclif; forms containing l in the earlier part of the name, such as Egglesclif, are first attested in the 1190s, but are rarer in the Middle Ages.[3] The second element of the name is certainly from Old English clif ("steep slope"), presumably referring to the slope from Egglescliffe down to the River Tees.
The consensus among authorities in the twentieth century was that the first element came from Latin ecclesia, "church", by way of Old Welsh (today's Welsh eglwys). If so, the name once meant "church-slope".[3] However, by 2007 Victor Watts had noted that Egglescliffe is distant from other examples of more reliably attested "Eccles" names, and that the l is usually absent from the first element in mediæval sources. He concluded that Egglescliffe originated with the personal name Ecgwulf, which had the nickname form Ecga; thus the place could have been Ecgan clif, meaning 'Ecga's slope'.[4][5]
Egglescliffe gave its name to their neighbouring Eaglescliffe, whose name is simply a variant of Egglescliffe produced by folk-etymological adaptation of the unfamiliar Eggles- to the familiar Eagles-.[6]
History
The lands north of the River Tees were not recorded in the 1068 Domesday Book. The parish church is dedicated to St John the Baptist and there has been a place of worship on the site since the twelfth century.
Bishop Skirlaw of Durham built a stone bridge, Yarm Bridge, across the Tees in 1400 which still stands. An intended replacement was built of iron in 1805, but it fell down in 1806.[7]
Pictures
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Egglescliffe) |
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War memorial -
Parish hall -
Church Road cottages -
Pot & Glass public house
See also
Outside links
References
- ↑ "History of the Parish". Egglescliffe & Eaglescliffe Parish Council. http://www.egglescliffeandeaglescliffe-pc.org.uk/page.php?id=18.
- ↑ The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society, ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), s.v. Egglescliffe; ISBN 9780521362092.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Watts, V.: 'Place-Names of County Durham , Part' (English Place-Names Society, 2007)
- ↑ Watts, V.: 'Place-Names of County Durham , Part' (English Place-Names Society, 2007)
- ↑ Bethany Fox, 'The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland', The Heroic Age, 10 (2007), http://www.heroicage.org/issues/10/fox.html (appendix at http://www.heroicage.org/issues/10/fox-appendix.html).
- ↑ The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society, ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), s.v. Eaglescliffe; ISBN 9780521362092.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1105658: Yarm Bridge Over River Tees (Grade @ listing)