When I was a kid, my garden backed onto a massive pit heap. It's now all flattened out and landscaped and objectively better, but there was something special about "the heaps".

Bingfield. Recorded as Bingefeld 1180. Might be "open land by a hollow". It stands on a hillside overlooking a burn. Might be 'place named after Bynna' /'the people called after Bynna". There is 'binge' in Middle Low German - that's a 'kettle shaped hollow in hills'.

Caldbeck, Cumbria. Caldebek 11thC. ‘Cold stream’. Old Scandinavian kaldr + bekkr. Source: Oxford Dictionary of British #PlaceNames. 📸Les Hull #medievalsky

Fire (Robin of Pegswood), Bronze miner firing a spade from a steel girder. Another of Tom Maley's masterpieces. Situated on the A197 Pegswood Roundabout, Morpeth. #Fire #RobinofPegswood #TomMaley #Pegswood #Morpeth

Pegswood - near Morpeth, used to have a magnificent pit heap - does not refer to a wood belonging to Peg. It actually means "Pegg's enclosure." Recorded as Peggisworth 1242. It's important to have the old spellings in order to track the meaning.

.... another Scottish bing. Very impressive it is too. Those who followed me on X know I like a pit heap. Pegswood was the one I knew best.

Guinevere's Dialect. Bing. A heap. A pit heap in Scotland. Old Norse bing-r, heap. In the NE though, a heap of e.g grain , wooden receptacle, a bin. Also a measure of lead ore. Bing hole - a hole through which the ore is thrown. Bing steed - where ore is laid ready for smelting.

Guinevere's Dialect. Press. A cupboard. OED. Now mainly Scottish & Irish English. 1st recorded 1387. A large, usually shelved, cupboard especially in a recess, for holding linen, clothes, books, food,plates etc. I have Granma's. This one ⬇️, was my Gt Aunts. Sister has it now.

In East Durham this week documenting the long term impact of pit closures on mining villages for the Seeds of Dissent section of my Rebellion! exhibition. Entire communities abandoned to their fate and the casual disregard of the social contract with working class people by successive governments.

Sicga, the 'patrician', or leading courtier, blamed for the murder of Ælfwald, king of the Northumbrians, took his own life #OTD in 793. Symeon of Durham says Sicga’s body was taken to Lindisfarne and there buried. 📸xlibber #medievalsky

Guinevere's Guide to pronouncing Northumbrian place names like a local. Twizel. T why zul. No twizzle or zel sounds. There are quite a few around -some hidden, like Haltwhistle. 🤣. A twizel is a fork/junction. In the case of Haltwhistle, it's the junction of 2 watercourses.

Guinevere's Dialect. Twisty. As used ⬇️ from a contributor on X. It's in Griffiths. The Scots Dictionary says "a surly or perverse mood". We also applied it to the cat when she was getting cross & flicking her tail - cat owners will understand.😉 "The bairn gets proper twisty when she's tired mind".

I haven't disappeared. I've been away for half term. Usual obscurities will return shortly.

Spennymoor means "moor with or by a fence/enclosure." Recorded as Spening mor 1305. Spenne is OE for a fence /piece of land enclosed by a fence, and OE mor. We had quite a debate on X about how to pronounce it, "moor" having 2 syllables for those of us from Nth of the Tyne !

Whitley Bay in the winter sunshine this morning. #WhitleyBay #Tyneside #Northumberland

Expect more map snippets. There is much on them that we simply don't pick up because we don't know the words. Curlew nesting grounds for a start ! I don't know the words either - but I know where to find them & I like a map.

More whaups........

Agarshill (Whitfield) is certainly hilly but it's a shiel. A temporary shelter & also the pasture where it sat. Recorded as Algerseles 1278, "the sheles of Alger" ( a person.) Seeking guidance from a local on pronunciation please ! There are several possibilities.....

Guinevere goes (even more) obscure and also combines dialect & pronunciation guide. Whaup Moss. Scottish & Northern for the curlew. Said "warp". They breed in upland areas of rough pasture, moors and wetland. Yup, they'd find that in a Moss (bog, swamp.)

Thoughts turn to Ponteland which has the "eel" sound. Is that an eale? Sort of. It's Pont island, the earliest spelling being Eland in 1248. An island ?!?! Yes. It definitely was. A huge marsh (coughs ...carr) to the north & east. See⬇️ , from 1828 :

Back to the map for more dialect. Rigg - a ridge, a long narrow hill. OED - " frequent in place names in Nthn England" . Looks at those contour lines around Ealingham Rigg ⬇️ Yup !!! Had an excellent view of that rigg from my Aunt's front window !!

Guinevere's guide to pronouncing Northumbrian place names like a local. Ealingham (where ?? Bellingham.) Eel in(g) jum. An eale ? No. It's homestead of the sons of Eofel. Recorded as Evelingham 1279. Perhaps the modern form though is influenced by nearby eal.

Guinevere's Dialect. Eale/eel. "An island of land on low ground liable to river floods" says Heslop 1893. In OED as an 1800's form of hale...a nook of low lying land near a river. Isn't that a haugh you say. Well, yes. Haugh is the Nthn/Scottish of OE healh/halh...🧵

....and here we have another Routin Linn with a Brig (bridge.)

Back to Linns. ⬇️ Rout means to cry out, bellow, roar. OED. Scottish,Nthn English & Nthn Irish English. 1st recorded c1300. It's.... Scandinavian. So, a noisy waterfall. I don't know rout. I imagine few do now. It deserves to be better known & used.

Ottercops. Where ? Elsdon. No otter police. 😉 Recorded as Altercopes 1265. Cop is top or summit. OE. Obsolete except dialect. Alter is thought to be Romano Celtic & means ??* Anyhow, the "otter" spelling came in 1628 & is clearly influenced by nearby Otterburn. 🧵

Gets borrowed into Gaelic place-names too, like Forsinard and Forsinain (Fors An-Àird & Fors an Fhàin) in Sutherland: upper and lower waterfall

Words that have different meanings in the NE : Pet - not an animal or touch Pet lip -not found on a pet Pet Lamb - not a pet. Can be 🐑 or human High Force & Burn - watery Kite - doesn't fly Ket - sugary Dog - not a pet Bank - no £ Fret - from the sea Windows - missed

High Force Waterfall

A walk I hope I'll be well enough to do again one day (things I never thought I'd say). The river Tees leading to High Force waterfall. #Photography #ThePhotoHour #Landscape

Guinevere's Dialect. Force. A waterfall. OED. Nthn English. First recorded 1600. Scandinavian. Old Norse fors. Is that foss you think ? Yes. Foss & Force. Same thing. E.g. High Force in Teesdale. Well named. 71ft.

Guinevere's Dialect. Linn. OED. "A torrent running over rocks ; a cascade, a waterfall". Also a pool into which that falls. Also a ravine with steep sides. Chiefly Scottish. It's OE. Hareshaw Linn at Bellingham...now what does that mean .....🧵

Guinevere's Dialect. Dreich. It is. Very. Several meanings however as applied to weather - unremitting, incessant rain, overcast, cold, dreary. Scottish, Nthn English, Nthn Irish English & Nth Midlands. Multiple origins though partly a borrowing from early Scandinavian.

Central Exchange Building, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear Built 1837-8. At times, an art gallery, concert hall & vaudeville theatre. But interior destroyed by fire in 1900. Reopened 1906 as Central Arcade with Burmantofts tiles & Rust’s mosaics. (See ALT text) #TilesOnTuesday #MosaicMonday

We’ve just received “Trial, Sentence & Execution of William Jobling” (1832) following #conservation work. This broadside recounts Jobling’s conviction for the murder of Nicholas Fairles, his execution at Durham Assizes, and the grim post-mortem punishment of gibbeting — one of the last in England.

Guinevere's Dialect. Dottle. Usually used to refer to the plug of ash/half burnt tobacco in a pipe and in relation to proggy mats. Scottish. Also though, it's something small, especially animal droppings or a small amount of something. Divvent drop ya dottle on the proggy mat !

Guinevere's Watercourses - Prestwick Carr. Where? North of the airport. Why? The roads & pattern of settlement there were & still are dictated by the Carr. Geography again.... Is there much to say about it ? Oh yes! 🧵

Carrs. What's she on about you wonder. Where are these carrs ? Well, if you have flown from Newcastle Airport you have had a birds eye view of what was an extremely important one. I will repost my thread on Prestwick Carr....

Guinevere's guide to pronouncing places names like a local. Waskerley. It's woss. Not was or wass. Means "wasker wood or clearing". Wasker means marsh with a brushwood path. It's Norse....& it is of course a kjarr (carr) a marsh. I like kjarrs.There are quite a lot about, hiding.....ByKER, WalKER. 😁

View across the River Tyne from Newcastle's Castle Keep, 1957, photo by Jimmy Forsyth.

Perfectly understood by those fluent.

Then there is this, which amuses me greatly given the butchery tradition in the Grainger Market and that I only know pet lambs as sheep.🤣.Yet it means something else completely to those who use it as an endearment. I'm told the Patisserie is excellent by the way.

But Keith, like me , doesn't know pet lamb as a person. So it's not just me !

And more 2 legged pet lambs......

See......the controversy has started here now. Pet ✅ Pet lamb as applied to a person ❌ It's completely alien to me. 🤣

See. ⬇️ It's a thing. Yet to me it's completely unknown. 🤯 So, I have had to go into the etymology of pet... Not to be confused with pet lip. That's something else entirely & has a different origin !

29 Jan 1669: 77 year old William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle’s play ‘The heiress’ - a collaboration with John Dryden #poet & playwright - is seen by Charles II #otd It is now lost.

The word that has exploded is "pet lamb". I know it as a lamb that has had to be hand reared as it has been rejected by it's mother / orphaned. However this is news to my primarily urban audience who tell me it's a common term of endearment ! To me, this is quite bizarre ! 🤣

Have you visited our new exhibition yet? Curated by Robinson Bequest student Hannah Reynolds, From Padua to Edinburgh explores the intersection of art and medicine in European anatomical drawings. The exhibition is free to visit and now open on Level 2 of the Philip Robinson Library.

Beverley was never on my radar until I found about St John of Beverley. He is the St John of St John Lee up the Tyne. I did a thread a while back. Now, Beverley pops up quite regularly !