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| Isis Close |
Other than places named after the Marden, the river that flows through Calne from Calstone to the Avon near Chippenham (which will be covered in a separate post), we currently have 4 streets named after rivers.
They are Avon Close, Isis Close, Severn Close, and Kennet Walk. All four are near Fynamore School and were built as part of the Persimmon development, Lansdowne Park, which completed in 2008.
Avon Close: The name Avon means 'river'[1].
There are 2 Avon rivers that flow through Wiltshire. The Salisbury or Hampshire Avon, which begins east of Devizes and east of Pewsey, merges at Upavon and flows through Salisbury before it meets the river Stour at Christchurch. The Bristol Avon, begins near Chipping Sodbury and flows through Chippenham (where our own River Marden joins it), through Lacock and Melksham, and eventually via Bristol to meet the river Severn.
Isis Close: Isis is an alternative name for the River Thames between its source in the Cotswold and Dorchester where is it joined by the River Thame. The Roman name for the Thames was the Tamesis, which in the Middle Ages was wrongly thought to be a combination of "Thame" and "Isis"[2].
Severn Close: Severn is thought to derive from a Celtic original name *sabrinnā[3], which is of unknown meaning. It is the only one of these 4 rivers not to flow through any part of Wiltshire.
Kennet Walk: The meaning of Kennet is also one that has been lost to time. The name comes from Cunetio, a late Iron Age oppidum[4], also possibly an early Roman fort.
To discover more about the place names of Calne, buy the book:
References:
[1] Gover, J., Mawer, A. and Stenton, F. (1970). The place-names of Wiltshire. Cambridge: At the University Press.
[2] Wikipedia. 2019. The Isis - Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Isis. [Accessed 19 June 2019].
[3] Wikipedia. 2019. River Severn - Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Severn#Etymology_and_mythology. [Accessed 19 June 2019].
[4] Royalarchinst.org. (2019). Cunetio, Wiltshire: archaeology and history. [online] Available at: http://www.royalarchinst.org/sites/royalarchinst.org/files/documents/SMR_Wiltshire_Cunetio.pdf [Accessed 19 Jun. 2019].
