Place-names are not usually attached to points. They are more likely given to areas of land, agricultural units, or estates and named settlements may shift within a given area. In Wirral, if correctly identified, the Irby place-name refers to an excavated site over 800 m from the later medieval village nucleus.
The mobility of settlements in the early medieval period is well established (cf. Taylor 1983; Hamerow 2012, pp. 67-70; Thomas 2012, pp. 44-45). We cannot be sure that a named place is in the same location as a later village or farm since settlements may have shifted locations. The ‘drift’ concept identified by Chris Taylor (1983, pp. 120-123; Roberts and Wrathmell 2002) is seen widely across southern and eastern England in the early to mid Anglo-Saxon period.
Place-names provide some clues to the locations of sites, especially where they are preserved in field names and localised to a relatively small area. Dodgson identified a series of habitative place-names that may represent ‘lost’ settlements of possible Scandinavian origin in Wirral and nearby. They include Haby in Barnston, Hesby in Bidston, Warmby in Heswall, Kiln Walby in Overchurch (Upton), Stromby in Thurstaston, and Syllaby in Great Saughall (Dodgson 1972, passim).
There is growing agreement amongst place-name scholars that - by names represent low-status places, less substantial than names ending in the Old English - tun, and are located in relatively marginal places away from major centres of power (Abrams and Parsons 2004, p. 401). The Wirral sites bear out this interpretation as secondary, minor places within the framework of English parish and township names, as several lie in marginal locations near township boundaries.
The value of place-names as indicators of early medieval settlements can be seen in recent work at Wallasey. The site at Hilary Breck is the only early medieval site discovered so far as a result of fieldwork specifically targeted for that period. The site lay on a slope just below the hilltop parish church, with its early dedication to St. Hilary in Wallasey at a place formerly known by the Norse place name Kirkby in Waley (ON ‘church-village,’ with parish name Waley, ‘the Britons’ island’: Dodgson 1972, pp. 324, 332). National Museums Liverpool’s Archaeology Department found a corn-drying oven associated with a deposit rich in cereals and other carbonised plant material (Adams 2012). Radiocarbon confirmed a very late 4th to 6th century AD date, ca. 390 to 580. AD indicating activity from the highly elusive early post-Roman period. Although not Viking Age, the place-name provided crucial evidence of the potential for early medieval activity.
Gill Chitty suggested that the influence of the Scandinavian settlers on the landscape can be seen in the small townships of Arrowe, Pensby, and Noctorum, all occupying spurs of elevated land with single farm holdings (1978, p. 10) that may indicate the colonisation of previously unoccupied land for pastoral farming by Norse settlers. She further suggested that air and field surveys might produce evidence at Hargrave, a small Domesday manor with a Norse-named Lord Osgot at Domesday. The manor later was incorporated into Raby. Was there ever a nucleated settlement there or was it always occupied by a single farmstead (Chitty 1978, p. 10)? Such a site, largely unencumbered by destructive later development, may offer good opportunities to identify early medieval occupations.
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