Translating The Sacred Hills Of Arras, East Yorkshire

The strange case of Harrow-on-the-Hill in London and Arras Hill in East Yorkshire.

Some of the views near Arras, East Yorkshire, taken near Arras Farm and the public rights of way across the Yorkshire Wolds hiking trail. Photo Credit: the author, 2026

“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”

~ Wendell Berry

For the last four years, I have worked on the translation of ‘Arras’ in the Yorkshire Wolds. This has been with the dogged intention of better understanding this landscape and why it was so revered as a burial place by our Iron Age ancestors.

Working on etymology often feels like a breadcrumb trail, as you follow it further into the woods and the murky unknowns of the past.

But etymology is also a deeply satisfying treasure hunt.

It can tell us much more about the ethics, beliefs and cosmologies of our forebears than we realise, shedding light on dark corners of history which archaeology and anthropology have failed to reveal, or which they struggle to translate into modern and accessible concepts.

Arras (with Sancton Wold and Hessleskew) in East Yorkshire is a great example of this conundrum, and this article tells the strange and curious tale of how Harrow-on-the-Hill has ultimately solved this very old mystery.

At the end, I will also offer a new translation of Arras in northern France.

Trusting in the breadcrumb trail of etymology and language

I was introduced to the magic of etymology in 2022 when my friend Sarah helped me to create a theory around the lost location of Delgovicia.

Together we combined the clues within the name ‘Delgovicia’ (also known as Delgovitia, Delgovitium and Devovicia) to suggest that the Roman settlement was located in the area of Market Weighton and Goodmanham. This is an alternative to the popular ideas locating the settlement at Millington, Hayton or Malton, and I updated the article with new research and ideas in 2025.

Sarah (L) and the author (R) in Kansas City, 2016. With Sarah’s help in 2022, I offered a new translation of Delgovicia and we proposed its location as Market Weighton and Goodmanham.

Some might say that it’s too farfetched to make such assumptions from language alone — but etymology rarely lies.

What it will do is send us down rabbit holes and on the odd “wild goose chase” now and then, until we land on something that seems to work or make sense. Most of the time this will happen because of mistranslations and lost in translations in the historical record.

A lot of research continues to be devoted to etymology in the academic world. That’s why it is still possible to study and train to become an expert in etymology and why people continue to refer to the hidden history of words in their work, whether they’re writing fiction or non-fiction.

Words are a window to the past and to people, cultures, and entire civilisations that are dead and buried.

East Yorkshire during the 5th and 6th Centuries, as the Roman Legions departed Britain and Anglo-Saxon migrations began to change the place-names of the landscape. Arras is located around the area shown here as ‘Sancton.’ Dera Wudu and Dera Feld became Beverley and Driffield respectively, in the Celtic kingdom of Deira (Deifyr / Dewyr). The territory of Deira kingdom most likely corresponded with the general boundaries of the previous Parisii tribal lands. Little is known about the Parisii Iron Age people, other than their famed chariot burials and love for metal-working.

Beginning the search for the real Arras

Between 2021 and 2025, I ran an independent consulting business called Arras Healing. At the time I was living in Market Weighton, near the very bottom of Arras Hill just as it begins to slope upwards, and this had always been a well-known marker in the landscape of that region.

The business seemed to name itself and the words had a spirit of their own for the almost five years that I was working with them. There was definitely a story behind the name and title of “Arras” and I was determined to find it.

Was Arras a person, such as a king or a chieftain? Was it the name of an old farm or hamlet?

How did such an unusual word end up being recorded in documents for so many centuries — yet there is barely anything there to denote it as a name or settlement in need of any recording?

Am I chasing something which doesn’t exist? Is this a waste of time?

These were the questions that vexed me as I followed the breadcrumb trail on the hunt for ancient origins.

Deep down I somehow just knew — there is more to Arras than only a local place-name on a map. More to it than a couple of farm buildings. More to it than an area known to be hilly with nice views of the Aurora Borealis and pleasant walking trails along the Yorkshire Wolds Way.

I also suspected there was more to Arras and the Hessleskew / Sancton Wold area than just the famous Iron Age burials it is known for (and lending its name to the prehistoric Arras Culture), though it is rightly known for these too.

In this old map from the early 1800s, the region of Goodmanham (with Delgovicia written underneath) can be seen towards the top right, and tracing down you will find Sancton and Houghton, onto Hotham and South Cave, towards Broomfleet and the River Humber. The illustrations of the burial mounds (depicted as small hills) show that this whole region was dotted with barrows and ancient cemeteries prior to intensive ploughing and farming practices taking hold in the 20th Century. Sadly these practices have flattened the landscape and destroyed many graves. The etymology of ‘Arras’ has preserved the importance and significance of this landscape into modern times.

After much searching and inquiry, I almost gave up on what seemed like a needle-in-a-haystack. The origins of the place-name ‘Arras’ simply hadn’t been preserved. There was nothing left to tell us what it meant or how it became attached to this landscape. The knowledge was lost, probably many centuries ago. I would have to give up and accept it.

Even the extensive Etymological Survey of English Place Names, from the University of Nottingham, did not have the answer for me. It had only added more mystery and more confusion to the long search.

Arras was simply one of those mysterious names with a history that had fallen out of human memory, its legend lost if ever there was one, and its remnants scattered to the winds of change and time.

But hang on there just a minute!

The author atop Arras Hill, looking down towards Sancton behind me. This landscape was once dotted with hundreds of burial mounds (barrows and howes), dating from the Iron Age and the pre-Roman era.

The most commonly cited (and incorrect) etymology for Arras, East Yorkshire

The most commonly given explanation for Arras is based upon Old Norse. This incorrectly tells us that Arras comes down to us from erg, which is the Old Norse word for shelter or sheep-hut / sheep-pasture.

I will make the case for why this is an incorrect reading of the place-name’s evolution through at least two millennia. I have been sitting on this research for two years so I do apologise for not sharing it sooner (I’ve had a lot to deal with in the last two years).

By March 2024, I was still somewhat reliant upon the Survey of English Place Names (University of Nottingham) to provide insight into my etymological quests, including this one for Arras.

The Survey of English Place Names is no longer accessible in the same format online, but back in 2024, the following attestations were offered for Arras which I screen-grabbed at the time:

Attestations for the place-name of Arras, East Yorkshire, from the Survey of English Place-Names. Image Credit: author’s screenshot, retrieved March 2024

The earliest attestation for the site of Arras appears to be from the year 1156, as there is no Domesday Book version given here. However, Herges is likely to be contemporary to the name known at the time of the Domesday Book (completed around 1087). Great care was taken in the writing of the Domesday Book — a lot of money and taxes depended on it — so we can assume this was an accurate recording of any known place-name at the time.

According to the survey, Herges then evolved into Erghes and Erghus over the next few centuries (1268 AD and 1465 AD respectively). You can see and understand the presumed Old Norse influence here of “erg.”

Briefly we also find Alderges in 1200, which to the keen eye is clearly a combination of the Old English suffix Ald- (meaning old or ancient) and Erghes. These Norse and Germanic influences suggest that the region of Arras translated to “the old shelters.”

Perhaps there was much sheep grazing to be had here and the shepherds kept their huts, dotted amongst the ancient barrows, to keep the hunting wolves at bay?

This explanation wasn’t enough for me. I felt sure that the proliferation of the mounds would have been so marked upon the landscape in those centuries, so clear to the naked eye, and so unmarred by ploughing, that the peoples of the time would have been sure to comment on them — and perhaps even to fear them.

In the image below, you can see the scale of these cemeteries as they were visible in the early 1800s. In earlier centuries it is likely this was even more pronounced across the hilly landscape:

William Watson’s map of the Arras cemetery, dated 05 August 1816. Sadly this landscape has been completely flattened by modern farming, despite its heritage as a ritual landscape revealed to us by its title of ‘Arras.’ The holy well of Hessleskew is also marked and the suggestion given that ‘Hessleskew’ may once have been a small hamlet. Had this landscape not been so decimated over the last 100 years, it may have been a contender for UNESCO World Heritage status (coupled with Rudston, East Yorkshire and the Great Wold Valley) and might have received more appropriate protections. The author argues this lack of protection is a heritage crime.

Maps of Arras, near Market Weighton, as it evolved through the years 1620 AD to 1851 AD. The extensive rabbit warrens are clearly visible up to the mid-1800s, with this suggestive of land that is relatively left alone to its own devices. Hessleskew is again marked, implying a small hamlet. By 1851 the land of Arras is being divided up for ploughing, meaning that the burial grounds managed to survive for over 2,000 years without interference. The rabbit warrens were similarly marked on Watson’s drawing from 1816, and most likely they correspond to a patch of land that is intentionally left alone to nature’s will. You can view rabbit warrens on modern OS Maps to find similar examples of this. Click here to be taken to the research paper on jstor.org where there is more information about the evolution of Arras.

Based on my theory that the burial mounds were more important to the naming of Arras than any shepherd huts were (with no offence intended to shepherds, who feature heavily amongst my own ancestors), I decided to work with the earlier name of Herges and trace this back for more clues.

Perhaps there had been a mistranslation of some kind as languages shifted backwards and forwards in the local populace?

For a start it is likely that the local East Yorkshire dialect during intervening centuries gradually dropped the original ‘H’ at the start of the name, leaving us (eventually) with Arras instead of, say, “Harras.”

By this logic we get Arows on the Wold by 1535 and then the modern Arras by 1553, with no apparent changes since.

The older name of Herges would lead me to the Borough of Harrow in North London. More specifically it led me to the ancient hill and church found there: Harrow-on-the-Hill and St Mary’s Church, which are likely to be the site of a pagan shrine in Saxon, Roman or pre-Roman times.

Painting of Harrow-on-the-Hill as it was in 1798, by Francis Jukes. The village would later be connected by railway to central London and the land developed to become the Borough of Harrow. The ancient hill — possibly the site of an ancient pagan temple — is seen in the background with St Mary’s Church spire clearly visible as an identifying landscape marker. This hill is important to our etymological quest.

Secrets revealed: the etymology of Arras, East Yorkshire (courtesy of Harrow, London)

Quite a lot of research into the etymology of Harrow-on-the-Hill has been completed over the last few decades.

The name Harrow is believed to stem from the Old English hearg, meaning temple, shrine, or altar. This can be traced throughout various attestations since as early as 767 AD, when it appeared as **Gumeninga hergae **(“temple / shrine / altar of Gumeninga”).

Hearg is nearly always linked to pre-Christian spiritual practices. It is thought by scholars to have evolved from the earlier Proto Germanic *harugaz, meaning pile of stones, cairn, altar, sacred grove, or enclosed sanctuary. This would imply pagan worship and traditions rooted in the veneration of nature and the wild.

Further discussion on the etymology of hearg, including Warren Hill and Peper Harow in Surrey, and with their relevant academic papers of interest, can be found here.

Descendants of the Proto Germanic **harugaz **include the aforementioned hearg from Old English, hǫrgr of Old Norse (which also gives us the English howe meaning burial mound, beacon site or sacred hill), harug of West Germanic, Old Saxon and Old High German, and hörgur* **in modern Icelandic.

There is a haraho in either Vulgar Latin or Germanic Law also proposed. This may have been an Old Frankish term.

We can observe the evolution of this word in the intervening centuries, as Harrow’s name shapeshifted into Hearge (827 AD), Hergas (832 AD) and Herges (as per Domesday Book, 1086/87).

As you can see this is very similar to the shapeshifting form of Arras in East Yorkshire, where we see Herges (1156 AD), Alderges (1200 AD), Erghes (1268 AD), Arows (1535 AD) and finally Arras (1553 AD).

I believe this demonstrates a clear link between the etymology of Harrow and the etymology of Arras which have, ultimately, shared the same journey through time from their original hearg.

Arras does not mean “the shelters” or “sheep pastures” and it does not come to us from the Old Norse.

It’s heritage is older — much older — reaching back to the days of the Saxon Shore after the end of Roman rule in Britain.

The links with the etymology of Harrow, I would like to posit, are more than coincidental and they demonstrate that Arras is an Old English place-name.

Owing to the unique features of the Arras landscape and the renown of its ancient burial grounds, it seems also possible that the name is older than even the Saxons. When the Saxons arrived to this part of Yorkshire in the 5th Century, they would have found a mix of native Celts and Romanised Britons living here. Those people would have had their own name for Arras and this could have inspired the Germanic name of hearg.

Perhaps this Brythonic or Latin name — now lost — was connected to the area’s Iron Age past? Or perhaps it, also, made simple reference to the presence of the burial grounds?

The modern etymological translation of Arras Hill in East Yorkshire should therefore be something like: the old place of many shrines.

View from a distance of the rumoured Roman Amphitheatre at the intersection of Arras, Hessleskew and Sancton Wold. The site is on private farmland, surrounded by trees, but can be viewed from the adjacent public right of way. The ancient Hessleskew Well (now destroyed / filled in by the landowner) is nearby and running adjacent. This could be a further clue to the lost Delgovicia and the Roman / Iron Age tracks nearby. Photo Credit: the author, 2026

Does this translation have any bearing on Arras in France?

If sites such as Harrow in London and Arras in East Yorkshire (which are carrying the place-name of hearg in some manner) have been settled since ancient times then they probably pre-date the Roman Empire as areas of pagan spiritual and religious gathering.

We know for a fact (thanks to archaeology and the survival of the Arras Culture discoveries) that Arras pre-dates the Roman Conquest and the Christianisation of Britain. It’s place-name has evolved since those times and based upon those notable landscape features.

Whereas at Harrow-on-the-Hill, we have the pattern of churches built atop sites that were already deemed sacred to the previous occupants. St Mary’s Church sits atop the hill, enjoying panoramic views across the region, and there have been some archaeological findings of Roman date.

Based on my research, excavation of Harrow has been limited and much archaeology was lost during the early 20th Century, when the original village was heavily developed into a borough of London. Sadly, standard archaeological surveys prior to building and development were not brought into English law until 1990.

Nevertheless, this re-purposing of existing sacred land into new religious usage may be relevant to the town of Arras, located in northern France.

Arras, in northern France, was known in its Roman Gaul days as Nemetacum. This borrowed from the original Gaulish name of Nemetocenna. Photo by Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash

We know that the town of Arras, France was founded atop a hill by the Belgic Atrebates tribe during the Iron Age. This tribe, who spoke a form of Celtic Gaulish, named their settlement as Nemetocenna.

The Atrebates had trading links with Britain and most likely shared a common cosmology in Iron Age Druidry / Druidism. The title for their settlement of Nemetocenna is innately Celtic, meaning sacred enclosed space, sacred place, sanctuary or sacred grove.

During the 4th Century, this became the Romanised form of Nemetacum.

These names were inspired by Nemetona, an attested Celtic goddess, most likely venerated by the Druids in Gaul, Britain and parts of Germania. Nemetona means something like “she of the sacred groves” or “she of the sanctuary.”

Scholars now believe that Germanic tribes and Celtic tribes both recognised Nemetona. Her name has been linked to the Nemetes, a Germanic tribe of the upper Rhine region. If this is true, then it suggests that some version of Druidism must have existed amongst the Germanic people who lived all along the Rhine and who interacted with their Celtic neighbours. Numerous Celto-Germanic trading settlements are known to modern archaeology, which implies cultural cross-pollination and close living proximity.

In Britain we also have place-names inspired by Nemetona of the sacred groves, namely Vernemeton. Wherever there are Brythonic, Celtic or Latin words containing a sprinkling of nemeton, nemet- or nemeto- within them, they can be related back to sacred groves or temples.

Vernemeton, in Nottinghamshire, was known in Roman times as a great place of sanctuary and — just like Arras in France, Arras in East Yorkshire, and Harrow in London — it was situated on a hill.

Vernemeton was most likely the meeting place of spiritual leaders and law-makers, such as druids.

In their co-authored book The Life and Death of a Druid Prince (1989), Anne Ross and Don Robins theorise that Vernemeton was burned to the ground by the Romans as retribution for the actions of Boudicca’s Army in 60–61 AD. The close proximity of the Fosse Way Roman road to Vernemeton is also interpreted by the authors as deliberate — further sacrilege gained by driving the road directly through the sacred grove. This would have hammered the morale of the revolting Britons and wreaked havoc on their ability to pursue their native spiritual practices.

Ross and Robins go so far as to claim that Boudicca’s final battle was fought just a few miles south of Vernemeton, where she was defeated by General Suetonius. Owing to the proximity of the proposed Boudiccan battlefield, Vernemeton may have been “one of the greatest sacred sites of Celtic Britain.”

All of this becomes important when we realise that the Celtic nemeton and nemet- share their meaning with the Germanic hearg and *harugaz.

Both sets of words refer to sacred places, sacred hills or groves, temples, shrines, altars and sanctuary.

So does this mean that Nemetocenna — Arras, France — was one of the greatest sacred sites of Celtic Gaul?

Photo by Pierre Herman on Unsplash

Arras in France has possibly neglected its history as a sacred place of worship and sanctuary in ancient Gaul. It’s place-name has suffered a similar mistranslation over the years as to that which occurred at Arras in East Yorkshire.

Historically, “Arras” has been assumed as referring to the making of medieval tapestries and a prestigious wool trade. By the 11th and 12th Centuries, Arras was renowned across Europe for the quality of its fine tapestries and tapestry-makers. This led to the words Arras and Arazzi becoming synonymous with tapestry in England and Italy.

Thus many people have believed that “Arras” translates to “tapestry.”

Other etymological theories have suggested that the place-name of Arras is derived from Atrebates, the local Iron Age tribe, or from the Celtic Ar- meaning “running water” or “flowing water” in reference to the River Scarpe.

I shall argue that it is none of these — with my thanks to Harrow in London and Arras in East Yorkshire for solving this French mystery! We Brits, French, and Germans have more in common than we ever realise.

Photo by Mikhail Mamaev on Unsplash

During the 4th and 5th Centuries, as the Roman Empire fell apart in Western Europe, Roman Gaul experienced a similar fate to that of Roman Britain. Except instead of facing waves of Saxon migration, Gaul received the Frankish peoples.

It is not completely known who the Franks were or how they came to be the Franks. We know they were made up of numerous, united Germanic tribes and that they spoke a shared Germanic language (known as Old Frankish, a West Germanic dialect). They lived along the Rhine River and most likely were descended from the “barbarians” of Germania who the Romans had attempted to conquer at numerous times in their colourful history.

As we have learned of the proximity links with Celtic Gaul (see above), it is likely that the Franks also claimed some descent from Roman Gallic or Celto-Gaulish peoples that had escaped the path of the Roman Legions in earlier centuries. In fact, their tribal lands covered much of modern day Western Europe, including the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.

Whoever they were, by the time that the 3rd Century rolled round, they were being collectively referred to as “the Franks.” And at various points in the early 5th Century, the Franks sacked the settlement of Nemetacum (Arras), eventually taking over and settling the region.

One of the Frankish kings who led this migration was called Chlodio (Clodion le Chevelu), a name which bears striking similarities to Gaulish and Celtic personal names in their non-Latinised formats. Very little is known about Chlodio (or “Cloio”) other than he was a successful war chief and led his people as far south as the River Somme, expanding the kingdom of the Franks still deeper into Roman Gaul.

Although the Franks eventually adopted a form of Vulgar Latin and the early Romance languages (which later became French), when they first arrived on the scene and for the next few centuries, they would have been speaking in their native Germanic tongue. Some Old Frankish words survived into modern French, and they obviously gave France its name, but it is now an extinct language.

The West Germanic language of Frankish is thought to be derived in part from Proto Germanic. As in the Nordic countries, it is believed that there was a high level of intelligibility between the dialects of the different Germanic tribes, who would eventually combine to create the Frankish federation.

It remains possible that the Franks, the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes all understood each other very well. They most likely shared words, language, culture, cosmology, gods, heritage, arts and trades — as well as ancestry.

Because of this, the Old English hearg and the Proto Germanic **harugaz **were likely to have had a similar appearance and meaning in Old Frankish. This may have been the haraho ***found in Ripuarii Germanic Law, a possible Frankish word.

We can theorise that, after sacking the settlement of Nemetacum and moving their own people in, there is a good chance that the Franks translated the place-name into their own tongue. After all they were the new rulers and they had pushed out the Roman authorities.

If the Frankish word for sanctuary / sacred grove / temple / shrine in any way resembled the Germanic hearg or *harugaz then over the following centuries it may have undergone a similar transformation to mirror those which occurred in Harrow, London and Arras, East Yorkshire — before culminating in the modern place-name of “Arras.”

Owing to the closeness of the various Germanic dialects during that era, it is entirely possible that this is what happened.

It would mean that Arras in France translates to something like: the place of holiness.

The ancient identity of Nemetocenna was thus preserved. Though the sacred groves were cut down, the Celtic war horns silenced, and the Druids defeated, the goddess Nemetona would live on, surviving the rise and fall of kingdoms for the next 2,000 years.

The spirit of place endured.

This, folks, is the magic of etymology.

An overdue reckoning with the past and the dead

The name of Arras is a title. It denotes an area of land as specifically sacred, singled out, and revered. It is an appropriate name for the Iron Age burial grounds of the Arras Culture, traversing the rolling hills of this ritual landscape between Market Weighton, Goodmanham, Sancton and Hessleskew.

Over time, the place-name worked its way into local folklore, warding off would-be graverobbers and keeping superstitious villagers at bay.

By the 17th and 18th Centuries, still it had the power to scare and enchant. Travellers, tourists and traders didn’t always understand what it was they were seeing as they passed along the York-to-Beverley turnpike in their carts and carriages, but they — and the later antiquarians — knew that it was special.

Only at the meeting of the 19th and 20th Centuries did these hills begin to lose their sense of communal protection and ancestral regard. From that time they were opened up to industrialised agriculture, flattened beneath the machines of modernity.

Today, in the 21st Century, the assault continues — as the historically-significant Arras is placed at huge risk again by the seemingly relentless development of energy projects in East Yorkshire.

Have we lost the sense of sacredness that we once knew and attached to the land?

Burial grounds are holy places. They are full of power, mystery, love, and beauty.

The burial grounds of Arras carried the death rites of a civilisation for possibly hundreds of years, until the coming of the Roman Conquest. Even then — amidst all the slaughter and pillage of empire — the Romans didn’t destroy this place, opting instead to build their own dwellings and temples here.

Possible site of ancient temple or ruin, marked as a Roman Amphitheatre, on 1910 Ordnance Survey map of Arras and Hessleskew.

The people of the Iron Age chose this place not only for its hilly elevation and majesty, but for its ability to cross the threshold between this life and the next one, to play host to their sacred ceremonies, and to watch over their beloved ancestors for all time.

In many native and indigenous cultures, ancestors are the main link between the human and the divine (the gods, deities, Creator, Source) and it is likely that the landscape of Arras held this function for the pre-Christian, pagan culture that resided here.

Did the Iron Age people bury their dead at Arras and then abandon them once the funeral rites were over — or did they return again and again, at times of crisis, times of need, times of change, and times of transition to commune with their ancestors and seek the wisdom of the gods?

The answers are written on the land. We need only open our eyes and ears to them. And the earth, and the dead who reside in the earth, will be sure to answer us.

So, the next time that you are visiting Harrow in London, Arras in the Yorkshire Wolds, or Arras in northern France, be sure to seek the secrets of the land. They await your questing for them.

For the past is never as far from the human heart as we are conditioned to believe. And the living of yesterday are never far from our presence nor our words.

Indeed, they left their mark upon language so that we would always know how to ask for them by voice, by spirit, and by name.

References

Bailey, Keith, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Middlesex: Harrow and Hayes, in Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, No. 9, 63–74, 1996, retrieved March 2024 / July 2026 via research at Surrey Medieval

Briggs, Robert, Harrow on the Hill, Harrow on the Hill | Surrey Medieval, Accessed by the author March 2024, July-August 2026

Halkon P, & Lyall J, & Deverell J, & Hunt T, & Fernández-Götz M, Arras 200: revisiting Britain’s most famous Iron Age cemetery, in Antiquity. 2019; 93(368) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/arras-200-revisiting-britains-most-famous-iron-age-cemetery/5149F60A7D3530A9EA0B2C6F3562B738 Accessed by the author 17 July 2026

Harris, Alan, Some maps of Deserted Medieval Villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire, in Geographische Zeitschrift, vol. 56, no. 3, 1968, pp. 181–93. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27816913. Accessed by the author 04 March 2025

Ross, Anne & Robins, Don, The Life and Death of a Druid Prince, Summit Books, New York, 1989

Semple, Sarah, Defining the Old English hearg: a preliminary archaeological and topographic examination of hearg place-names and their hinterlands, in Early Medieval Europe, 15.4 (2007), 364–85 via **Surrey Medieval, **accessed August 2026

Wilson, David, A Note on Old English hearg and wēoh as Place-Name Elements Representing Different Types of Pagan Worship Sites, in Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 4 (1985), 179–83 via **Surrey Medieval, **accessed August 2026

Recommended Further Reading:

[embed]Delgovicia — revisiting the story of a forgotten Roman town Unearthing the truth about the lost Roman settlement of northern Britain.medium.com

[embed]Land of Yews and Druids — in search of York’s ancient past Yorkshire as a forgotten centre of Druid activity takes me from the Wolds to the big city.medium.com

[embed]Part Two ~ Brigid: Roman genocide of the British goddess Part Two of a two-part series — the Roman Empire’s genocide in Britain during the First Century AD is a trauma still…medium.com