Miles Kington: Bournemouth, from which no traveller returns

Judging from my mailbag, many of you are fascinated by the origins of place names, so today I am having a one-off linguistic surgery to deal with your baffling toponyms.

Q. I was always taught that the Welsh word Aber meant "the mouth of a river", so that Aberwystwyth means the mouth of the River Wystwyth, Aberdovey the mouth of the River Dyfi and so on. So how come you sometimes find towns far from the sea with names like Aberdare and Abergavenny?

A. In prehistoric times Wales was largely covered by water, and as the seas gradually receded what were once seaside towns gradually moved far inland. Abergavenny was presumably once a desirable coastal resort, and has retained its old name. If global warming does its worst and the seas go on rising, who knows but that Abergavenny might not be a seaside town once again.

Q. I know that in England the equivalent of Aber- is -mouth, as in Cockermouth, and Teignmouth. Is there a River Bourne which comes out at Bournemouth?

A. Yes. But I believe it comes out underground so that the mouth is no longer visible. Bourne is an old word for river, of course, so River Bourne actually means "River River".

Q. What's the point of calling a river "River River"?

A. None at all.

Q. When Shakespeare says that death is the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller ever returns, was he talking about a river?

A. I think you will find that the actual quotation is "that Bourne from which no Hollingsworth ever returns".

Q. I don't get it.

A. Do you remember an old department store called Bourne and Hollingsworth?

Q. No...

A. Then forget it. Next, please.

Q. What is a zouch? As in Ashby de la Zouch?

A. It is a small noise made by the French when they touch a hot saucepan accidentally. It is masculine, so the name of the town should correctly be "Ashby du Zouch".

Q. I know that "chester" on the end of a name means that it was once a Roman camp, from the Latin "castra". But I recently passed a place in the South of Scotland called Bonchester, and I know the Romans never got that far north, so how come?

A. Ah, but none of these "-chester" places were called "castra" by the Romans. They called Cirencester "Corinium", Dorchester "Durnovaria", Manchester "Mancunium" and so on. Even Chester was called something quite different, ie "Deva". Scholars now think that these names suggesting Roman origins were given to them by local tourist organisations in the Middle Ages, to give them heritage appeal. Even maybe in Scotland.

Q. Why do old Roman roads not have old Roman names? Road names like the Fosse Way, Watling Street and the Icknield Way all sound very Saxon to me.

A. It is customary to remove normal names in wartime to confuse the enemy. With the threat of the Norman Invasion in 1066, all roads were hastily renamed to misinform the Norman invaders. The old names were never restored.

Q. There are traces of many occupiers, immigrants and invaders of our country in our place names. There are traces of Roman occupation, as well as Latin names given to towns by antiquarian scholars, such as Blandford Forum and Lyme Regis. There are plenty of traces of Celtic, Saxon and Norman occupation, and of course a lot of our names derive from the Viking invasions and settlement of pre-1066 days. But what of the Spanish Armada? Is there no corner of Britain where the shipwrecked and bedraggled Spanish sailors made landfall and secretly stayed to build a community? Is there perhaps a small village somewhere in the further reaches of our isles, near to some storm-tossed shore, which still bears a Hispanic name such as El Campamento, Nueva Coruna or San Diego? Bognor del Rey, even?

A. No.