For the last thirty years or so there has been general consensus regarding what constituted a Thorp. These places were small, dependent, late-forming settlements, often associated with the final phases of Scandinavian settlement in the Danelaw counties. Thorps, then, were rather anonymous and insignificant places. They tended to remain small if they survived at all, although many would later succumb to shrinkage or total desertion.

Throwing a spanner in the works are the Throps, place-names which appear with more regularity in areas outside of Scandinavian influence. Clearly the term Thorp and Throp are connected, linguists suggesting that this is a case of metathesis (the shifting of, in this instance, the letter 'r') and that the two terms share a common root. Commentators have wrestled with the exact relationship between these two groups: was Thorp a place-name brought to England by Scandinavian settlers and later adopted in changed form by the English? Certainly, throps often only appear in the historical record rather late in the day. Or was this an early English term which in some senses underlies the Scandinavian examples.

The medieval dovecote and church at Sibthorpe, Notts.

Previous work on Thorps has tended to concentrate on those regions where they lie thickest on the ground, and to treat the two groups Thorps and Throps as separate entities. We have taken a different approach. After careful analysis, we have convinced ourselves that both might be explored as a single naming phenomenon. By so doing, and by exploring them in a variety of ways - we have looked at what their qualifiers might say about these places, the chronology of their first record, their position in the landscape, their relationship with particular soils etc. - we have been able to propose that these places played a specific role in the functioning of early medieval agricultural society. In particular we have been able to associate Thorps and Throps with arable farming, and in particular with areas of open-field farming. Thorps and Throps, we suggest, were both the product of this agricultural revolution and prime movers in its spread across the country. And that it is this close association with open-field farming which helps to explain their national distribution.

Big patterns are one thing, but this hypothesis (for it remains such) now needs to be tested on the ground. We would be extremely interested in hearing from anyone who is, or is hoping to, work on the origins of Thorp settlements.

Richard Jones, David Parsons, and Paul Cullen

Further Reading:

Cameron, K. 1975: Scandinavian settlement in the territory of the Five Boroughs: the place-name evidence, part II, place-names in Thorp, in K. Cameron (ed.), Place-Name Evidence for the Anglo-Saxon Invasion and Scandinavian Settlements: Eight Studies, 139-156. Nottingham.

Cullen, P., Jones, R. and Parsons, D.N. forthcoming: Thorps in a Changing Landscape. Hatfield.

Fellows-Jensen, G. 1991-2: Place-names in -torp: in retrospect and in turmoil. Nomina 15, 35-51.

Lund, N. 1976: Thorp-names, in P.H. Sawyer (ed.), Medieval Settlement. Continuity and Change, 223-225. London.