<<A road name in the village of Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent goes under the name of 'Brisley Hill' which name could go back to mediaeval times. Would anyone know the origins of the name. The ancient name of the field names nearby used to go under the name of 'Bearshill' until the early 19th century. Wonder of there is any connection with the two as in Grisley Bear?>> Hello Richard, It's difficult to determine the original meaning of place-names from the modern form only - one needs the earliest known forms of the name, ideally Anglo-Saxon or at least medieval, and preferably quite a few examples. Even with these the best that can often be produced is an educated guess. As Roy has said, there is a village in Norfolk called Brisley, which probably means Gadfly-ley, and that might possibly be the explanation here, but there are other possibilities (including something as mundane as ownership by a man or family called Brisley). Without early forms there really isn't much point in speculating. The nearby fields called Bearshill are interesting. The two names are just close enough to make you wonder whether one could be a corruption of the other, but dissimilar enough to cast doubt on a connection. It's unlikely that Bearshill has anything to do with bears, though - 'bear' is an extremely rare element in English place-names. Matt

Hi Richard, Re the field name Bearshill: John Field in his diictionary of English Field Names has Bear Close/Croft/Field/Furlong/Hay & Lands, and Piece. Meaning: "land on which hard barley was grown". These names are spread across various counties - Oxfordshire, Cheshire, Berkshire, Shropshire. He says "see also Barcroft [OE bere]. The Barcroft entry with the same meaning as above, [from OE bere] includes Bare Acre, Bare Bottoms, Bare Field, Bare Flar, Bare Hill. Counties mentioned are Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Lancs, Leics, Shropshire, Derbyshire. Hard barley is the four or six row variety only grown in the north of England and in Scotland. The more common variety has only two longitudinal rows of fertile spikelets. So perhaps this gives an origin for Bearshill No idea re Brisley, however. Cheers, Liz in Melbourne