EVER wondered about your town, village or hamlet in Northumberland, and how its name came about?

In the case of many, we need to look no further than a book published five years ago by Dr Stan Beckensall.

Back in 2016, the Hexham publishing legend refreshed an old favourite, Place Names and Field Names of Northumberland, after initially beginning his research four decades earlier.

His work for this particular book started in the 1970s, when he was a tutor at Alnwick College of Education, where Dr Beckensall obtained information dating back centuries.

Here are some of his findings - the various derivations of local names:

Slaley - 'claggy' or muddy stretch of 'ley', cleared land.

Blanchland - drawn from the French canons who once lived and worked in the Abbey there, distinguished by their white habits.

Acomb - 'acum', which identified a location 'at the oak trees'.

Sillywrae - 'salix', meaning willows, and wrae, meaning nook.

Bellister - bel-estre, meaning fine place.

Broomhaugh - a broom-covered haugh, a flat piece of alluvial plain.

Brunton - 'burna', meaning 'by the burn', and ton, meaning 'settlement'.

Dissington - 'dic' meant ditch, moat or embankment, so 'the settlement by the ditch'.

Falstone - 'fealu' ('yellowish') or 'fag' (multi-coloured) and 'stan', meaning 'stone'.

Haltwhistle - from 'heafod', the place, where the river/s either forked or joined, 'twisla'.

Haydon Bridge - from 'hay-don', hay valley.

Heddon-on-the-Wall - from 'hed-dun', heather hill.

Horsley - from 'horsa-leah', horse pasture.

Kielder - pre-Roman, like the Welsh 'caled-dwfr', violent water.

Langley - a long clearing clearing.

Melkridge - from 'meoluc-hryg', milk ridge, ie. good pasture.

Ponteland - from 'ealand', an island in the marsh by the River Pont.

Riding Mill - mill in a clearing.

Stamfordham - settlement at the stony ford.

Stocksfield - field belonging to a religious house or outlying settlement.

Wallington - W(e)alh's people's settlement.

Willimoteswike - French, Willimot's farm.

Wylam - from 'wil', a mechanical device that could be a fish trap or a water mill, on a 'hamm', a water meadow.