Rowley Burn (also known as Rowley Brook and Ham Burn, NY 9358) is a stream in

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

, running around three miles south of Hexham before joining the Devil's Water, which flows into the River Tyne.

Etymology

Allen Mawer'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 settlers in the mid-5th c ...

''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's '' Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum'', completed around 731, recounts a story of the Battle of Heavenfield, 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 Canon William Greenwell, (23 March 1820 – 27 January 1918) was an English archaeologist and Church of England priest. Early life William Greenwell was born 23 March 1820 at the estate known as Greenwell Ford near Lanchester, County Durham, E ...

found evidence in a charter issued for the Archbishop of York by Thomas de Whittington 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 The Brittonic languages (also Brythonic or British Celtic; cy, ieithoedd Brythonaidd/Prydeinig; kw, yethow brythonek/predennek; br, yezhoù predenek) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic ...

Alaric Hall Alaric Hall (born 1979) is a British philologist who is an associate professor of English and director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. He has, since 2009, been the editor of the academic journal '' Leeds Studies ...

,
''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