Puck, Hurrack Raine and Traddock: did you know every field has a ‘secret’ name, handed down through generations over hundreds of years? The names are known within farming and local families, but rarely to others. They’re wonderful clues to the past, with intriguing names like the ones above.
Some field names are quite obvious, referring to the location of the field such as West Pasture, Low Meadow or Far End. A field with Ing in its name usually relates to a meadow near a river. Others relate to the farming family (Puck is the condensed version of Peacock, a Dales family name).
My favourites are those that tell a story about the history of the area, or previous uses of the fields. There’s one in Swaledale now known as Bull Alley, which initially sounds like it was simply a place where a bull was kept. Closer research reveals it was originally Bowl Alley where the game was played.
A field with a name like Standing Stones immediately tells you what to expect. Kennel Field offers its own story. Hurrack Raine sounds great but is more mysterious: Hurrack may be old North Country Dialect for a pile of stones, and Raine old Norse for a boundary. Tenter Ground was where newly made cloth was pinned out to dry on hooks (why we say ‘on tenter hooks’ when we’re feeling stretched or stressed!).
Some old field maps have survived thanks to the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836, which meant fields were mapped and recorded during the 1840s. You can see some examples at the Keld Resource Centre
The field name of Traddock lives on in The Traddock at Austwick: the field it was built on was used for horse and cattle trading in the 1600s and known as the ‘Trading Paddock’, eventually shortened to the ‘Traddock’.
Photo: Paul Harris/YDNPA