Rowley Burn (also known as Rowley Brook and Ham Burn, NY 9358) is a stream in Northumberland, running around three miles south of

Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden, Northumberland, Warden nearby, and ...

before joining the Devil's Water, which flows into the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Wate ...

Etymology

Allen Mawer Sir Allen Mawer (8 May 1879 − 22 July 1942) was an English philologist. A notable researcher of Viking activity in the British Isles, Mawer is best known as the founder of the English Place-Name Society, and as Provost (education), Provost ...

's ''Place-Names of Northumberland and Durham'' implies that the name of the stream may have the same etymology as places called ''Roughley'', from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

''rūh'' (rough') and ''lēah'' ('open land in woodland').

Geology

The formation of the Rowley Burn valley has been discussed by J. B. Sissons.

History

Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...

's ''

Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum The ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' ( la, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), written by Bede in about AD 731, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict be ...

'', completed around 731, recounts a story of the

Battle of Heavenfield The Battle of Heavenfield was fought in 633 or 634 between a Northumbrian army under Oswald of Bernicia and a Welsh army under Cadwallon ap Cadfan of Gwynedd. The battle resulted in a decisive Northumbrian victory. The ''Annales Cambriae'' (Ann ...

, which Bede says took place 'in loco, qui lingua Anglorum Denisesburna, id est Riuus Denisi, uocatur' ('in a place which in the language of the English is called ''Denisesburna'', that is the stream of Denisus' around 634. William Greenwell found evidence in a charter issued for the Archbishop of York by

Thomas de Whittington Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

in 1233 that ''Denisesburna'' was identical with Rowley Burn, and the identification has been accepted since. Despite Bede's interpretation of the Old English word ''Denisesburna'' as meaning 'Denisus's stream', more recent scholarship has judged that the first element more likely comes from the Brittonic languages. Alaric Hall,
''A gente Anglorum appellatur'': The Evidence of Bede's ''Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum'' for the Replacement of Roman Names by English Ones During the Early Anglo-Saxon Period
, in ''Words in Dictionaries and History: Essays in Honour of R. W. McConchie'', ed. by Olga Timofeeva and Tanja Säily, Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice, 14 (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011), pp. 219-31 (p. 226, n. 3); .

References

Rivers of Northumberland History of Northumberland 2RowleyBurn {{England-river-stub