Wrote something recently featuring an etymological analysis of the name Updown Wood in Surrey. It’s not such an easy name to gets to grips with. And this makes me want to write an article about it with a title like ‘The Ups and Downs of place-name investigation’. How about it @snsbi.bsky.social? 😉

Of all the things that have happened in the past few weeks, I didn’t expect the one that caused me to hop back on here would be Surrey’s first reported button brooch, but here we are. It is quite exciting in its own small (very small) way, got me smiling like ☺️ finds.org.uk/database/art...

Excuse the LinkedIn-ish vocab but I am genuinely overjoyed to find Richard Henry’s new book, Fractured Britannia, is out and available #OpenAccess. Going to enjoy learning how he assesses so much PAS data alongside other data sources and recent scholarship www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

I for one would welcome seeing more signage with macrons indicating long vowels. Very good. (Mighty fine oat lattes available inside as well)

A new Substack post, in which I figure out what “a large brass coin of Justinus, A.D. 537” found in 1881 most probably was, and how it links to the story of post-Roman Southwark and north-east Surrey open.substack.com/pub/surreyab... (It gets better after the opening sentence I promise)

Completing my series on early medieval metalwork from the ex-Surrey Thames foreshore, here’s my fave + most shockingly small one IRL; an 8thC drinking horn terminal from Lambeth. A fiend to photograph so 3rd image from its ?only published outing, in a John Naylor chapter ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid...

With my usual alacrity, a post looking back at last weekend’s @snsbi.bsky.social spring conference in Bury St Edmunds. Featuring names, a rental flat with the best backstory, books, more names, pubs, churches, and even more names. Plus my paper on 5th-6thC archaeology, history, names and languages.

Maps of #Roman period Surrey and Southwark, from William Page & Edith Keate’s chapter in Volume 4 of @vch-home.bsky.social of Surrey, published 1912. Safe to say both long since superseded — Southwark especially feels like the setting for an almost constant stream of new discoveries from the period.

Back to @londonmuseum.bsky.social and another historic Surrey Thames-side find; a knife blade with inset silver plates, one inscribed OSMHND = Osmund, an Old English dithematic personal name. Dated 10th—early 11th century by John Clark in a 1980 note, pp348-49 of www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Absolutely fascinating insights into 21st century place-naming here. Family names as uncompounded place-names. No new generics only ones that have been in use for centuries. A hideous adaptation of a surname from a locative byname. All that and some “stan” sounds close enough to -ston” reasoning!

Saw a trio of early medieval finds from the historic Surrey foreshore a couple of weeks ago @londonmuseum.bsky.social. All tiny, this runic pinhead found in the Rotherhithe area the least surprisingly so. More about it: archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/ar... and finds.org.uk/database/art...

It’s happening again. I’m back talking place-names + archaeology at the @snsbi.bsky.social Spring Conference at the end of March. Wild all the things I’ll cover in 20 minutes. Cooking it down to the tastiest examples of how disciplinary divides might be spanned. Ideal fare for a Saturday 9.30am slot

Feeling really rather pleased to see the first half of something I’ve worked on for a number of years out in the wild today — namely my article on the earliest medieval charters relating to Farnham in #Surrey, newly published in the Volume 24 of Surrey History journal @surreyarch.bsky.social

Yesterday I made it through 22 post-medieval deeds (plus a few others that were too faded to be of use) looking for field-name spellings in under 4 hours. Surely some kind of record? For someone of my middling palaeographical skills anyway. Here’s a pic of the most fun one from the outside.

What I’ve read of this so far has been informative and enjoyable. Runes etc. are very much outside of my immediate research interests but relevant to a little big project I’ve had simmering on a low heat for the past couple of years. Anyone else read it? (I’m only 50 pages in so no spoilers pls)

Few things I love more than a fruitful trip to a research library (in this case @wellcomecollection.bsky.social Library). Found further testimony for a lost placename I’m investigating but can only confirm it is what I think it is by consulting the original manuscript. Bodleian here I come, I guess…

Most definitely missed that first wave of positivity on here but… My name’s Rob and, among other things, I’m writing a book about Surrey in the 4th—12th centuries, meaning I’ll have questions (mostly pdf requests) And yes I did once go to Samarkand and yes I did cry at the beauty of the Registan