The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9379   Message #62944
Posted By: Penny
14-Mar-99 - 03:00 AM
Thread Name: English Folk Songs
Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
A lot of the dens have remained just as farm names, so Evenden is probably on the map at that sort of level. It isn't in the place-name books I have, and the English Place Name Society has been working on the Kent book for half a century or so without publishing. However, other places which begin Even are either from a personal name such as Eafa, or what it sounds like, even, a level area. The academics insist you can't sort this out without early examples of the name. Off hand, Tenterden, Benenden, Rolvenden, Biddenden, Bethersden are all even areas, so it would be odd to single one out as being so. Like calling somewhere on the marshes Flatham.

And I heard the rock stuff down the grapevine, not from authority.