Place Name
Ringwood, is an historic market town in Hampshire, close to the New Forest. The name itself has been a matter of some speculation, which is summed up by the Ringwood World website: “The word Rimecuda (in 961) for Ringwood – and indeed Runcwuda (955), Rimucwuda (955) Rincvede (1086) – require some explanation which, sadly, is neither conclusive nor entirely persuasive. First, there is some debate about how to split these various forms of names for Ringwood into two parts. Some scholars favour a ‘rimec/rimuc’ and wua/uda’ split; others a ‘rimu and cwuda’ split. All agree that ‘rim’ (whether ‘rimec’, ‘rimuc’ or’rimu’) means ‘border’. And most agree that the ‘wuda’ or ‘cwuda’ part means wood. Hence the general conclusion that the origin of name Ringwood meant border of a wood. Those who favour the alternative Run-cwuda over the Runc-wuda split may perhaps take some comfort from the origins of the word for wood which is the Welsh gwydd, from the Old English ‘wudu’. Eilert Ekwall, an eminent English scholar of the early 20th century, offered support for this traditional etymological explanation. He postulated a word ‘rimuc’, a version of the Old English ‘rima’, meaning border or edge and argued Ringwood was the ‘border wood’: i.e. the wood on the edge of the New Forest. All this leaves unanswered the question: How did ‘rim’ become the ‘ring’ of Ringwood?. It may be simply that Ringwood sounded more euphonic or more flatteringly descriptive than Rimwood as time passed. After all, it’s generally better to be a complete ring of something than to be on the edge of something. Or it may be explicable only in terms of the folk etymology that, for example, converted Roi de Rue into Rotten Row, the French moucheron into mushroom and, at one time in English history, asparagus into sparrow grass (by which it is still known in some parts of England today). We shouldn’t leave the subject of the name of Ringwood without mentioning an entirely different explanation of its origin. Disregarding the etymological excursion above, William Camden 1551 – 1623), an eminent English historian, suggested that the original form was derived from the Regni (aka the Regnenses), a tribe ruled by King Cogidubnus who was accorded Roman citizenship in Roman Britain. According to Camden, Ringwood was originally Regne Wood, the wood occupied by the Regni tribe. This version of the origin of the name Ringwood is supported by The National Gazeteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) which noted: ‘Ringwood was a place of importance at a very early period, and was originally named Regnum, or the town of the Regni, mentioned by Antoninus. It was occupied both by the Romans and Britons as a military post, and was called Renoved and Regnewood by the Saxons, who set much store by it.'” As for this street name, in 1951 the architect’s department at the London County Council selected this area of Roehampton as the site for one of the largest and most radical housing developments ever undertaken in London – the Alton Estate. At the time of its completion in 1958, Alton West was considered by many British architects to be the crowning glory of post-World War II social housing. The estate itself takes its name from Alton Lodge, an early-19thCentury villa on the Kingston Road, occupied by Dr Thomas Hake from around 1854 until 1872. Seizing on this as a naming opportunity, the local government chose to name almost all of the other roads on the Alton Estate after places in Hampshire. Scott MacRobert in A Brief History: Putney and Roehampton writes: “Dramatic change came to Roehampton after the war, when the London County Council built the massive Alton East and West Estates of the 1950s. It is, in reality, two housing estates. Alton East was created in the early 1950s and provided 744 dwellings on 28 acres; Alton West was formed later in the decade and provided 1867 dwellings on 100 acres. On Alton West, the LCC essentially retained the Georgian landscape and placed within it five ultra modern slab blocks, inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, and now listed buildings by English Heritage. While this change swept away a number of fine houses, it was seen as providing much needed better quality housing for many from the deprivation of inner London boroughs.”
