Newton Arlosh and Arlosh House NY 213 563 near Silloth

Arlosh House is just outside the hamlet of Newton Arlosh. Arlosk 1185, Arloske 1354, Arlossche 1332, Neutonarlosk' 1345

PNCu compares this to Cornish names such as Trelask (Trelosk 1272) and says the second element is Welsh llosg "burning". They futher say that the ar- is a British preposition ar "on, upon" or the intensive prefix, and they suggest that Arlosg therefore means a place cleared by burning. Deshayes lists three names with a similar element in Brittany - Coat-Losquer, Geurlosquer and Kerlosquer - though this seems to be equivalent to llosgwr "a burner" (Deshayes 1999). James (2012) reminds us that the original meaning of ar- was "facing, beside, in front of". He suggests a Cumbric losg (cf Welsh llosg) but also wonders about *lūsǭg as a lost stream name with the root as in Welsh llus "plant, herb". If it is based on a river name, then presumably the River Waver which now has an English name

Newton is clearly English and was 'new' because it was established in 1305 (Pevsner 1967) by the Abbey of Holm Cultram after the destruction of nearby Skinburness by flooding. (in 1301). The area must have been known as Arlosg before the New Town was founded there.


The group /sk/ was palatalised in Old English to /ʃ/ but in Northern dialects this was late or didn't happen sometimes due to Norse influence (Minkova 2013).