Place-Names of Montgomeryshire

Place-Names of Montgomeryshire examines 900 place-names in the historic county of Montgomery (1536-1974) together with the southernmost part of Denbighshire that was transferred to Powys from Clwyd in 1996. Place-names tell us a lot about how our ancestors lived, their languages and dialects, and how they thought about the world around them but great care must be taken to gather as much written and spoken evidence as possible before attempting to interpret those names.Richard Morgan’s masterful study not only reveals many fascinating explanations of Montgomeryshire’s place-names but also resolves numerous false interpretations:Montgomery, which gave its name to a Norman castle, town and the former county, is actually a French name transferred from Normandy.To Welsh-speakers it is Trefaldwyn or ‘Baldwin’s town’ and this in turn has given us the Welsh language county name of Maldwyn. Drenewydd and Newtown both mean ‘new town’ in reference to when the settlement was established at the end