I also have been to Whaley Bridge and Whaley Museum. The Museum is very small, but interesting, nothing of genealogical interest. I asked about the name Whaley. It is not named for a person or family. The word whaley means small valleys or hills. Phyllis

Phyllis Jackson wrote: > I also have been to Whaley Bridge and Whaley Museum. The Museum is very > small, but interesting, nothing of genealogical interest. I asked about > the name Whaley. It is not named for a person or family. The word > whaley means small valleys or hills. > > Phyllis Hi Phyllis, I thought I'd read to you from the small book, "Tracing The History of Place Names," by Charles Whynne-Hammond, published 1992 by Countryside Books, Newbury, Berkshire. On pg. 151, under listings for Lancashire, it lists WHALLEY. About which it says: "Called Hwaelleage in AD 798 and Whalegh in 1246, the suffix here clearly comes from leah, Saxon for "grove', 'wood' or 'pasture'. But there is a debate about the origin of the prefix,-- either from hwael or from hwealf, Saxon words for 'hill' and 'vault' or 'arch' respectively." Take note that I noticed the apparent transposition of the 'a' and the 'e' in the above words, and that is precisely as the book prints them. I double checked to see whether *I* had transposed them. I didn't. In conversations I've recently had with Frank Whalley, Wales, we were talking about the pronouncing of the first three letters of the name. The above seems to quite clearly point out where the "whuh" sound comes from, doesn't it? Uncommon as it is in any English words WE know, nevertheless, how *else* would one pronounce "hweal" or "hwaelf", except starting out as sounding like "whale..."? Again, a most interesting exposition, no? keith whaley