Place Name
Named after the River Moselle that runs near here. The name itself is adapted from Muswell Hill which this stream passes through to join with the River Lea in Tottenham, the river was previously called Campsbourne in the early 17thCentury. Muswell Hill was first mentioned in the mid-12thCentury as Mosewella, meaning a hill beside a mossy spring, when nuns established a chapel here dedicated to Our Lady of Muswell. It was thought that the mossy well had healing properties. The Scottish king Malcolm IV is said to have benefited from its waters. By 1535 it was being written as Muswell and in 1746 it was Muscle Hill. David Mills in A Dictionary of London Place Names writes: “The spelling of the name may have been influenced by the famous River Moselle in France and Germany, but it is in fact a late back-formation from Muswell Hill.”
