The Mellor Name
With regard to the name of Mellor, I've seen this variously translated as "Bare Hill" or "Brown Hill". My understanding is that neither translation is entirely accepted, as the hill was not bare during Saxon times, and as it isn't a particularly peaty area, is probably the least brown of all the hills in the region.
However, place names routinely were corrupted and "re-interpreted" over time to fit the language and what was there. For example, Yorvik became York, as later people didn't use the harsh consonants popular in the Danish language.
Another example would be the river flowing by Cambridge which got renamed to the river Cam on the grounds that the Victorians wanted consistant placenames. That Cambridge is a corruption of a much earlier name that has nothing to do with bridges escaped them entirely.
Is it possible that Mellor, then, is a corruption of a much earlier name, for the purpose of making it consistant with being on a hill? If we were to assume this to be the case, what would be a phonetically close name in Welsh or Cwmbran that could be a candidate?
Posted by: Jonathan Day 4th August 2006
Maelor (also spelt as Maelawr) is a Welsh name often meaning simply "land, country or plain" but with...wait for it...the extra meaning of "market" (from mael =profit, gain + lawr = land.
A Welsh-English dictionary of 1803 (the Geiriadur Prifyscol Cymru) says: "there are places so called in the marches of Wales..... where trade was carried on". (Morgan, Handbook of the origin of the place names in Wales etc, 1887).
British name, with implications of goods being exchanged....could it possibly go back to the very beginning of the hillfort? Or is it perhaps part of the "welshification" of place names which followed the Welsh resurgence of the 12th century (not sure about this - I think it is usually held to have been more significant in the southern parts of Cheshire)?
Posted by: Barbara Lightfoot 17th May 2007
A most interesting reply. It does correspond very nicely with what has been found at the site - imported raw materials, evidence of manufacturing exceeding the hilltop's requirements, and an apparently very high status.
(It also corresponds perfectly to my pet theory that it was a trading settlement, roughly along the lines of Petra, but I promise not to gloat too much. This would seem to be the best candidate for the original name that we have at this time.
I'd also like to suggest that the implications (incoming merchants would need to stay somewhere, you can't sell broken goods, Mellor got rich off the proceeds, and the neutrality of a general trading site would have to be enforced) be considered in deciding where to survey. ie: There should be multiple hot-spots for finds across the whole of the site, each potentially yielding different types of find.
Posted by: Jonathan Day 23rd May 2007