River Sence - Names Related To The Watercourses

Names Related To The Watercourses

Ambion is the name of a deserted village by a headwater of the Saint rising in Cadeby. It is recorded as Anabein (ca 1270), Anne Beame in the Hollinshead Chronicle (1576), Anbein (1622) and Amyon by John Hutton (1788). The name seems to derive from Old English Āna-bēam, a One-Beam bridge, probably the hamlet’s means of crossing the stream towards Market Bosworth. It is claimed as the traditional site of the Battle of Bosworth Field.

Barwell, Barwalle (1043), Barewelle (1086), sometimes pronounced ‘Barrull’. The first element is Old English bār, ‘boar’. Old English wella signifies a spring or stream In west Leicestershire, it seems to mean the stream issuing from a spring rather than the spring itself. The area of the headwaters of the Tweed would have been frequented by wild boar in Anglo-Saxon times. The other example of wella in the wateshed is “Twitchell”.

Brook Farm, west of Stoke Golding takes its name from the unnamed stream running north towards the Tweed at the foot of Ambion Hill.

King Dick’s Hole is a deep part of the Anker at its confluence with the Sence. Since at least Victorian times, it has been a popular bathing place for the youth of Atherstone and Sheepy. Local tradition has it that it is where King Richard bathed before the battle. More likely ‘hole’ is a corruption of early English halgh; an area of flood plain enclosed by a meandering river. The name could originally have referred to the area where Richard stationed some of his troops while lodging the night at Mythe Hall.

Lovett or Lovett’s Bridge, sometimes ‘Lovatt’ links Sheepy Parva across the Sence towards Orton on the Hill and Polesworth. Though there is now a footbridge, the ford there is at least 1000 years old. No association with a person so called has been found. Its relation to a branch of Redway towards Polesworth and to an ancient crossing of the Saint through Ratcliffe Culey suggests at least Iron Age origin. Nearby on that branch, Watery Lane, was an undatable Swithland slate courseway raised above flood level demolished by the Highways Authority around 1950. The River Ouzel in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire used to be called ‘Lovat’ and in Sussex is the River Lavant, both explained from Celtic British, perhaps here meaning either ‘smooth-flowing’.or ‘deep pool’.

Mythe derives from Old English gemyþe, ‘place where waters meet, confluence’, here the confluence of the Sence with the Anker. The name exists also for a settlement where the Avon joins the Severn north of Tewkesbury.

Ratcliffe, Redeclive (1086), ‘road-cleave’. Ratcliffe Culey takes its name from the ford where the Hinckley–Mythe road was ‘cleaved’ by the Sence 100 m upstream of its confluence with the Anker.

Sandeford is mentioned as the place where Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field but its situation is lost. It might be where Fenn Lane crosses the Tweed (GR 407989) or a tributary from Higham on the Hill (GR 391984) or on the Redway where a stream ran into the marsh north of Fenny Drayton (GR 352979) Both sites are rather marshy, so that a site on the River Saint at Miles Ford north-west of Shenton (GR 377010) is more probable.

'Sence and Saint probably share their origin with the British tribe Iceni in a word-root isc-, 'shine', iscent-, ‘shining’. In common with other rivers of the Midlands, a Celtic origin is more likely than Old English scenc, 'cup, drinking can. Either by coincidence or by association with the river name, All Saints is the dedication of the churches at Sheepy, Ratcliffe Culey and Nailstone in the Sence watershed. It is also the dedication of Ranton, Staffordshire, whose Priory owned Sheepy Manor until the Reformation.

Sheepy probably also derives its name from Celtic isc- with apa, ‘shining water’ rather than from Old English. sceap-ea, 'sheep river', or sceap-e.g., 'sheep island'.

Shenton, “Scenctun” (1002), Scentone (1086) derives its name from the river: scenc-tūn, ‘settlement on the Saint’.

Tweed derives from Celtic tueda, ‘powerful, swollen’ and tuea, ‘swell’. like the River Tweed in southern Scotland. It may describe the growth of the stream from Barwell to Shenton or the swelling marsh in rainy times..

Twitchell is a small stream running into the Sence at Sheepy Magna and the lane it adjoins. The origin of the name might be Twice-wella, a stream rising from two springs.