The Old English terms hearg and weoh have been interpreted by scholars in various ways.  Hearg is often suggested to represent a ‘pagan temple’, a ‘hill-top sanctuary or an ‘idol’ (see for example Stenton 1941; Meaney 1995), whilst weoh is variously translated as ‘shrine’, ‘altar’ or ‘idol’ (Wilson 1985; Meaney 1995, Blair 1995). These are rare survivals in the English place-name record and when they are identified in the landscape with any kind of precision, the interpretations are often speculative and reliant on particularly late name forms.

Nevertheless, this small group of problematic place-names represents some of the most exciting, evocative and contested of English place-names.  They are considered by many to refer to locations or places of pre-Christian religious activity: temples, sacred groves and hilltops, places with ‘pagan’ idols and shrines. Needless to say, archaeologists, myself included, have been drawn to such data, enthused and excited by its possibilities, only to become frustrated at the many difficulties this type of data presents.

In a recent publication (Early Medieval Europe), I made a preliminary exploration of the archaeological and topographical profile of a selection of hearg sites, and suggested that they shared certain attributes: hill-top positioning was common to most and has long been recognised, but in addition most sites shared an archaeological profile that included quite extensive activity of late Iron Age to Romano-British date. This I argued attested to the possible long-term significance of such sites – leading to their sacred status or role in the pre-Christian, early medieval era.

Multi-period finds-spots and excavated finds in the vicinity of Harrow Hill, Sussex

My 2009 SPASE paper continued this study exploring both hearg and weoh sites further, offering for discussion the archaeological methodology used to explore such place-names and their environs. The paper also asked a series of pertinent and problematic questions:  are these really locatable in the modern landscape? Could these terms mean a range of different things? What kind of activity is actually present on these sites? If these names reflect active Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian sacred places, why did these names survive the Conversion? How can we be sure these are not retrospective names – reflecting myths and legends rather than realities? Should we consider the hearg and weoh to be no more than the imaginings of Christian communities about the past?

Anyone who wishes to discuss hearg and weoh names further is welcome to contact me.

Sarah Semple

Further Reading:

Blair, J. 1995: Anglo-Saxon pagan shrines and their prototypes. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 8, 1-28.

Gelling, M. 1961: Place-names and Anglo-Saxon paganism. University of Birmingham Historical Journal 8, 7-25.

Meaney A. 1995: Pagan English sanctuaries, place-names and hundred meeting places, in J. Hines (ed.) The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century, 375-401. Woodbridge.

Semple, S. 2007: Defining the OE hearg: a preliminary archaeological and topographic examination of hearg place-names and their hinterlands. Early Medieval Europe 15, 364-385.

Stenton, F.M. 1941: The historical bearing of place-name studies: Anglo Saxon heathenism. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser. 23, 10-11.

Wilson, D. 1985: A note on OE hearg and weoh as place-name elements representing different types of pagan worship sites. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 4, 179-183.