Rook - OE hroc

Like most of the old corvid names, hroc is clearly onomatopoeic. It does a good of conveying that throaty raucousness that rooks make, somewhere between a raven’s deep cronk and a carrion crow’s caw.

Like OE crawe and hrafn, hroc appears in plenty of place-names. As with the others, though, it is impossible to know which of the hroc names originally and deliberately referred to Corvus frugilegus, though no doubt some must have, especially given the rook’s highly social behaviour and roosting habits which lends itself to spectacle and easy observation. For further discussion of the difficulties attached to medieval corvid names, see the page for carrion crow.

NOTE: As for other species on this site, an asterisk after the place-name is used to show an ambiguity in interpretation which has been expressed by place-name scholars (in this case, a possible but unrecorded personal name *Hroc or *Hrok, instead of the bird hroc). Usually, however, it seems to be the case that a personal name has been preferred by interpreters where it is assumed a bird wouldn’t be associated with a human habitation (although it is clear that this happen commonly enough with other bird place-names).

Rochester (Northumb)*

Rochford (Esx)

Rockford (Hants)

Rockbeare (Dev)

Rockbourne (Hants)

Rockhall Hill (Northants)

Rockhalls Lodge (GLond)

Rockhampton (Glos)*

Rockingham (Northants)*

Rockland All Saints/St Mary/St Peter (Norf)

Rocklands Farm (ESsx)

Rockley (Wilts)

Rockley (lost, Yorks)

Rockley Abbey (lost, Yorks)

Rockley Copse (Berk)

Rockley Farm (Dev)

Rockwell End (Bucks)

Roffey Hall (Esx)

Rokeby (Yorks)

Rookabear Farm (Devon)

Rook Barugh (Yorks)

Rookbeare Farm (Dev)

Rookby (Cumb)*

Rook Hall (Heybridge, Esx)

Rook Hall (Kelvedon, Esx)

Rookhill Farm (Wilts)

Rookholt Farm (Esx)

Rookhope (Co Dur)

Rookley (IoW)

Rookwith (Yorks)

Rook Wood (lost, Esx)

Rookwood Hall (Esx)

Rothamsted (lost, Herts)

Roxborough (lost, GLond)*

Roxby (Lincs)*

Roxby (Yorks)*

Roxeth (GLond)*

Roxford (Herts)

Roxley Farm (Sry)

Roxton (Beds)*

Roxwell (Esx)*

Rucketts (lost, Esx)

Ruckholt Farm (Esx)

Ruckinge (Kent)

Ruckland (Lincs)

Rucker’s Green (Herts)

Ruckley (Shrop)

Ruckley Grange (Shrop)

Ruxbury (Sry)

Ruxford (Dev)

Stoke Canon, originally Hrocastoc (Dev)

Fields: Rochaue (Rut), Rokeshulle, Hook Norton (Oxon), Rokhulle, Cirencester (Glos), Rokesnestes, Shepshed (Leics), Rookewod, Thornbury (Glos), Ruckcliffe, Walshcroft (Lincs).

Rooks appear in charters relating to the following places: Beckley, Oxon (11th cen.), Curry Rivel, Som (10th cen.), Cheriton Bishop, Dev (10th cen.), Sandford, Dev (10th cen.), Upper Swell, Glos (11th cen.), unidentified place granted by Athelwulf, King of Wessex (9th cen.).

Sources (see ‘About’ page for the full bibliography): Watts, Cambridge Dictionary; Ekwall, Oxford Dictionary; Cavill, English Field-Names; landscape.org.uk, sepn.nottingham.ac.uk, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk. See also Eric Lacey, ‘When Is a Hroc not a Hroc? When It Is a Crawe or a Hrefn!: A Case-Study in Recovering Old English Folk-Taxonomies’, in The Art, Literature and Material Culture of the Medieval World, ed. by M. Boulton, J. Hawkes and M. Herman (Dublin: Four Courts, 2015), pp. 138-52.