A history of the county of Stafford, Volume Ⅺ: Audley, Keele and Trentham

摘要

The latest volume in the Victoria County History (VCH) of Staffordshire covers five parishes in the north-west of the county to the south and west of Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent (treated in volume Ⅷ of 1963): Audley, Betley, Keele, Madeley and Trentham. A number of over-arching themes arise from the treatment of this corner of Staffordshire overlooking the Cheshire plain. The first is anglo-saxon settlement of this hilly area which was then extensively wooded, as evidenced by the frequency of-ley place-names (Audley, Betley, Madeley etc) derived from the Old English leah meaning a woodland clearing. Saxon settlement effaced most earlier names, though one suggestion forwarded here is that the place-name Lyme (as in Newcastle-under-Lyme and other names found in this area) derives from the Latin limen (threshold) and marks the area as lying on the boundary between two early Anglian tribal groups, the Pecsaete (Peak dwellers) to the north-east and the Wreocensaete (Wrekin dwellers) to the south-west. The often unpromising topography made for small villages and scattered settlements.