Blennerhasset NY178414

Blennerhasset NY178414 Blennerheiseta 1188, Blendherseta 1188, Blen'sete 1190, Bllenherseta 1194, Blenhersetta 1194, Blenreheyset 1230, Blennirhaiset 1290, Blenerhaysette 1308 

PNCu go with Ekwall's suggestion that this is Norse heysæt(r) 'hay sheiling' to which added to a (pre-existing place-name) containing blaen "top, front". They explain the d + r  by saying the British (Cumbric) name was blaendre - name does occur in Blaendref Isaf at Llandrillo near Corwen. But I prefer to explain it as an 11th Century context where the Cumbrians are borrowing Anglo-Norse words and phrases as their language fades (if you listen to modern Welsh speakers, or Urdu speakers in Britain, you will hear that their native language is increasingly full of English words and phrases).

 I see this as Blaen yr heysæt  - hill top of the hay sheiling where Cumbric speakers have borrowed the phrase heysæt(r). Coates is clear that the final -r is not found in Scandinavian place-names in Britain (Coates, 1997). With sætr we find ON hey "hay".

So we have the word sætr which means summer pasture or shieling. The trouble with this is that Blennerhasset ison the Solway Plain - lowland to which the hillfarmers bring down their sheep in winter, not up to in summer.  However, Nina Jennings when discussing practices on the Solway Plain says that place names such as Shield Farm at Lonburgh and Scales shows that there were shielings on the Plain. She cites  August Winchester's evidence that the shielings were not necessarily far away such as the men of Thursby who had sheilings in Westward Forest a mere 2 miles away in 1638 (Jennings, 2003: 4)

James considers Blaendre + heysæt as per PNCu and Ekwall, and also Richard Coates suggestion it might be Blaen-tir "upland". The issue with this is that this is lowland - especially compared with the nearby hill country.  I still stick with Blaen yr heysæt .

Turning from the Norse to the Cumbric, the form  where there is a generic + the definite article + the specific element is very common, usual in fact, in Brittonic names in Britanny, Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria and James discusses this "name form" (James, 2011: 74). My suggestion is that Cumbric speakers, under the influence of the Anglo-Norse dialect they eventually gave up Cumbric for, borrowed Anglo-Norse words and phrases and used them in naming places.  Compare Betws y Coed, where Betws is Middle English "Bead-house" meaning prayer house or alms house.

There was a Roman fort at Blennerhasset - see here, but south east of the current farm at NY190413