More on Keighley or 'Cyhha's Clearing'

Dear Readers--my friend Caroline replied to my Travelogue: Haworth post with the following comment. I thought it was too interesting not to elevate to a regular blog post. Thanks, Caroline. Fascinating info. JaneGS
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Hi there! I’ve been talking to Jane about Keighley spelling in another place, and with her permission, I’m putting some thoughts here which might help clarify why it’s so strange. In a nutshell, it’s because it’s from a different language, and very old.

'Cyhha's Clearing'- that's the accepted origin of the name. It's later Anglo-Saxon, and when originally written in what we now know as "Old English". Now the Saxons used runes to write, and if they wrote down the name of the place they would do it phonetically, according to their runic alphabet. To complicate matters further, they had different accents and dialects of their own, and it’s perfectly possible that two different Saxons, would write the word differently because they pronounced it slightly differently, and in modern times it’s hard to know exactly what was happening, sometimes. However, the accepted gist is that the C in “Cyhha” is a hard C, and the Y is actually a remanant of the rune which is pronounced "th". So Cyhha is pronounced something like Kuth-ha. The clearing is the "ley", which is pronounced "lee".

The Domesday Book of 1086, which was William the Conqueror's census and evaluation of his new English kingdom, is considered the definitive "first" for spelling and meaning of many places. The trouble with the Yorkshire survey was that it was done almost entirely by the only available literate men around- who happened to be French monks specially brought over to do the job. There are many instances where the French-and-Latin schooled monks had quite a bit of trouble finding a decent spelling for Anglo-Saxon words.(They had even more trouble with the Old Norse ones!) These men regularly had problems with "K" which exists not in Old French and exists only as a furrin import in modern French. And they didn't have that letter that represented "th" at all, again because it doesn't exist in French. So they either substituted something that they did understand or just left it out, when it came up. In the case of Keighley, they did their best to include it.

There’s a fair explanation of the transition from Runes to Latin letters , though not of place-names, at this site, scroll down about halfway.

Over the centuries, many place-names were written just as the writer saw fit, usually phonetically, sometimes abbreviated and sometimes with little added bits in them which were clear at the time, but not necessarily obvious now. So Keighly has been spelt sometimes with a C, and sometimes with K. That “th” sound is spelt sometimes with a “th” and sometimes with “ch”, which might be pronounced close to the “ch” in the scottish word “loch”. One thing is clear here- people were still pronouncing it with the “th”. Old spellings often say a lot about local accents! In Shakespeare’s time, and even in Jane Austen’s, you find handwritten documents where the place-name is still totally phonetic, and that can be a hoot to read!

It was only when the national postal service got underway at the beginning of Victoria’s reign, that it became important to have a standardized spelling of town names. Often the clerks involved with this had to go back to the original town charter of the middle ages in order to get things sorted, or failing that The Domesday book itself. Something about the old spellings of Keighley caused them to not put in the “th”. Who knows what that was? There wasn’t a lot of systematic understanding going on, that’s for sure.

Anyway, Keighley is “Keith” ley, to the confusion of everyone who was not born there.

Travelogue: Haworth

Last June, my then 16-year old daughter, Sarah, and I took a trip to Dublin-Shrewsbury-Stratford-Haworth-Whitby-Edinburgh. We had a wonderful time but somehow the travelogues got swallowed by Shakespeare postings and I realized that it was high time that Haworth was addressed properly.

Much as I loved visiting the Bronte Parsonage Museum, the Black Bull, the White Lion, and the rest of the town of Haworth, the part that I loved the most was escaping the narrow, stony town and walking on the moors up to Bronte Falls.

We had just one night in Haworth, arriving by train into Keighley about mid-day and then catching a taxi up to Haworth. After we checked into our B&B, we visited the Black Bull, where Branwell worked hard on drinking himself to death, and took loads of pictures while waiting for lunch.

Here's are our favorites from the pub:







After lunch, we scurried over to the Parsonage and spent a glorious couple of hours going through all the rooms. I've read for years about what a tiny person Charlotte was, but seeing her actual clothes really drove home that point. It was also a real treat to see the tiny books that Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne made as children. The Museum store was jam packed with goodies and we ended up getting a couple of posters--a portrait of Emily and a water color of Top Withins.

Mother Nature got her rainstorm out of the way while we were in the Museum, so afterwards we decided to hike up to Bronte Falls before dinner. The road to the trail was fairly empty, and the trail was absolutely empty except for two groups of hikers that we met on the way down. I have no idea whether that is common or not--I had sort of assumed that the trail would be choked with Bronte fans paying homage, but we pretty much had the moors to ourselves on a fresh, beautiful June evening.

We ended the day with a dinner at The White Lion where we were both so tired we were practically falling asleep in our soup. Next day, we visited the church--all but Anne are buried in a vault below the church--and the graveyard where we saw headstone after headstone that marked the passing of a very short life. Only a few were for people who lived to old age--most were in their 20's or younger.

Haworth was definitely a pilgrimage that will remain vivid in my mind for a long, long time. As we were riding in the taxi up from Keighley, I mentioned how it felt like we were going back in time as the roads became cobbled and the streets narrowed. Sarah ended up wearing her glasses instead of contacts while we were there because the wood smoke from the chimneys stung her eyes. The parsonage, church and graveyard, Black Bull, and White Lion are all at the top of town--all the streets slope down from them, but the moors beckon you up out of the town. It truly is a remarkable feeling, that feeling of the hills calling to you to leave the smokey town and walk in the fresh air on the top of the world.

Final note - will someone please tell me who stole the "th" from Keighley? I fancy myself pretty good with the British pronunciation of place names, but I made a fool of myself at the train station in Stratford when I insisted that we wanted to go to Keighley (pronounced, I thought, "Keeley"). The woman selling the tickets kept on asking if I wanted to go to "Keithley" and finally I just pointed to the place on the map, and she said, "yes, Keithley!"

For the record, here is the station sign...no "th"!



Here are more pictures of this wonderful little town in beautiful Yorkshire where some of the finest literature in the English language was written. Everyone we encountered was friendly and helped to make our time there thoroughly enjoyable.

Does Rick Steves Hate Haworth?

I have been spending most of my free time reading travel guides in preparation for a two-week trip that my 16-year old daughter and I are taking to Ireland and the UK in June.

I love the Rick Steves's books, but I am shocked and appalled that he completely ignores Haworth in both his guides to England and Great Britain. I have been slavishly pouring over the GB guide, and there is nothing on Haworth. I looked at the index of the England guide on Amazon and searched on both Haworth and Bronte, and nothing. I'm having to resort to Frommers, which isn't bad but I like the Steves books better, for info on Haworth.

Anyone have any insight on this oddity? In terms of pilgrimages, I would think that Haworth would be competing with Chawton for second place after Stratford on Avon.