snow

[Reg Smeeton]

Since you like strange lace names Reg, have you ever hear of Blubberhouses, they Yorkshire village? If not, and without looking it up care t speculate on the origins of the name?

I had to look it up, it puzzled me because given it's inland location it puzzled me. The name was not given after what one may first think.

Lumps was on about it recently...in a thread which branched off into favourite place names.  I assume it's nothing to do with whales...Yorkshire was well in the Danelaw, so many of their place names have Norse origins...although I can't spot any of the obvious ones here.

A guess would be there are quite a few pubs called Blue Boar...any connection?

[oxford_fan]

i walked home from oxford city centre. icy and long. i rewarded myself with a rollie.

[Batch]

Reg that's a well reasoned guess and you may be right. From wikkipedia the name could have come from several places, but I heard the bubbling stream theory:

Several suggestions have been made for the origins of the name Blubberhouses:-

    * From the blueberry: Hargrove's History of Knaresborough.
    * From the Blue Boar, a former inn.
    * Early spellings include "Bluburgh", "Bluborrow", "Bluburhouse", (1172) "Bluberhusum". These may come from:-
          o Anglo-Saxon burh = "fort".[2]
          o From "Blueberg" = "blue mountain".[3]
          o Anglo-Saxon bluberhūs = "the house(s) which is/are at the bubbling stream"[4], with a later regularized plural; the -um form came from the Anglo-Saxon dative plural case æt bluberhūsum = "at the houses which ...".