Morthen is a hamlet in

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, lying between

Brampton-en-le-Morthen Brampton-en-le-Morthen is a small dormitory village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Thurcroft, in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, Rotherham district lying to the south of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. In 1911, the ...

and

Laughton-en-le-Morthen Laughton en le Morthen is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham lying to the south of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, and its main attraction is the All Saints Church with its tower and spire of 185 feet. The ...

David Hey David G. Hey (18 July 1938 – 14 February 2016) was an English historian, and was an authority on surnames and the local history of Yorkshire. Hey was the president of the British Association for Local History, and was a published author of sev ...

, ''Medieval South Yorkshire'' The population of the hamlet as taken at the 2011 Census was less than 100. Details are included in the civil parish of

Thurcroft Thurcroft is a village and civil parish situated south-east of Rotherham in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. From 1902 to 1991, it was a mining community. It has a population of 5,296, increasing to 6,900 at ...

. Morthen lay in the

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

district also named "Morthen". This had already ceased to function by the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

, but gave its name to several villages in the area. In the early Mediaeval period,

Aston Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Located immediately to the north-west of Birmingham city centre, Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a wards of the United Kingdom, war ...

and Dinnington were also described as being "-in-Morthen". The name of the hamlet originates in the

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

for "moorland assembly". The assembly probably met in a meadow lying next to the ridge running between Upper Whiston and the hamlet of Morthen. However, another plausible source for the name of Morthen is offered in the book "Athelstan" by Paul Hill, in which he states Morthen means "Slaughter Field". Given the proximity of a nearby stump of a Saxon cross, which is said by Guy Points in his "Yorkshire. A Gazetteer of Anglo Saxon and Viking Sites" to commemorate the epic Battle of Brunanburgh in 937 would tie the cross and the name together.

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External links

{{Commons category-inline, Morthen Geography of the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham Hamlets in South Yorkshire Ancient subdivisions of Yorkshire

See also

References

External links