Don't know about Messing, (for the sailors again, as in "about in boats"?) Bert, but Fobbing and Mucking are in Essex. OK, Thameside, close bound to Kent in the Peasant's Revolt, and the Early English Settlement, but Essex.

There was a Swede who studied placenames (a relation of that Wallenberg who did so much for prisoners during the war, and disappeared), who was enamoured of the idea that the "ing" placenames were formed from some physical characteristic of the early inhabitants. Thus, Bobbing, in Kent, was first settled by people who bobbed about; Freezingham, by folk with frizzy hair, (Frisians, it is now thought). This is not now supported, though some such names may have been a nickname of the leader of such groups. What that makes of Fobba, Mucka and Messa, I can't imagine. Or Barka.

And of course, we have names supplied by reversed movement, such as Gibraltar, Philippines, Pennsylvania. Thanks for the Chesterton, Dai, I found I hadn't got it when I looked last night.

There is a poem by Alan Garner, which speaks of a Dai shepherd, who left Llanfair PG for somewhere less tough, and found an NZ place which is longer, but I can't find that, either.

My class were doing some work invoving net connections with Horseshoe Bend, somewhere out West. They enjoyed this considerably, and then, in our river study on the diddy little Darent (more of a creek to some of you) were spotting horseshoe bends in that, with great fun.