The Survey of English Place-Names
The Survey of English Place‑Names is the principal project of the EPNS. The survey aims to examine the origins and development of all English place-names.
The published work is arranged by historic counties: the first volume, covering Buckinghamshire, appeared in 1925; the most recent, volume 90 dealing with part of Leicestershire, appeared in 2014.
For a full list of survey volumes published to date, please click here.
The current coverage of The English Place-Name Society Survey
From the beginning the Survey has received the generous support of the British Academy and, latterly, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Work on the Shropshire Survey is currently funded by the AHRC.
Director: Professor Richard Coates (University of the West of England)
Deputy Director: Dr David Parsons (Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales)
The Survey is the principal research project of the English Place‑Name Society.
Current County Editors of the Survey of English Place-Names
Work to complete the Survey of English Place-Names is currently being undertaken by the respective county editors:
Cornwall: Dr Oliver Padel
Dorset: Dr David Mills
Hampshire: Professor Richard Coates
Herefordshire: Mr John Freeman
Kent: Dr Paul Cullen
Lancashire: Professor John Insley
Leicestershire: Professor Barrie Cox
Norfolk: Partly published.
Shropshire has an editorial team, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council: Dr John Baker, Mrs Sarah Beach, Dr Jayne Carroll, Dr Paul Cavill, Dr David Parsons, and Ms Helen Watt.
Somerset: Work on a 'popular' Somerset dictionary is underway.
In addition, Professor Diana Whaley has supervision of the collection for Northumberland, while Professor John Insley is overseeing the publication of Lincolnshire material collected by the late Professor Cameron.
Coverage and Scope of the Survey
Before the Second World War, the Survey was largely limited to coverage of 'major' place-names, the names of towns, villages, larger rivers, forests, etc. From the 1950s onwards rich collections of minor names, field-names and street-names have also been included. (Major names are also nowadays given a very much fuller treatment than in the early years.) This detailed material provides an excellent resource for local investigators, social, urban and agricultural historians of the medieval and early modern periods, linguists, geographers and archaeologists. The growing scale of coverage, however, has inevitably slowed down the country-wide progress of the Survey, and counties are nowadays covered by multiple volumes. This accounts for the current partial coverage of some counties.
The map above indicates the current coverage of the country.