Little Ann
Little Ann, Abbotts Anncounty:
coords:
Hampshire
SU3343
Little Anne
otherwise: annae; anne, 901-14; Anna, 1086
ABBOT(T)'S ANN(E), AMPORT, LITTLE ANN(E), three manors, two parishes
Usually taken to be a Celtic river name based on hypothetical ?British 'onno-' 'ash'. The Old English forms would be good spellings for this. But words for trees are not found unadorned as Celtic river names; they are suffixed or compounded. Rivet and Smith (1979) experiment with various pre-Celtic etymologies for the possibly related Romano British name 'Onnum' but the name still remains obscure. There is actually no clear evidence that this really is an old river name, because the earliest mention of Pillhill Brook, to which it would have to refer, is 1228 'aqua de Anne' which could just as easily contain 'Anne' as a district name. It is true that the manors are strung out along Pillhill Brook. But I suggest that the name is a village or estate name deriving from hypothetical Primitive Welsh 'onn' (singular) or 'on' (plural) 'ash tree(s)' as a simplex name, like ASHE and 'Ash' (Surrey). Whether the stream had a distinct early name is uncertain. The modern name is not found before 1826. Scholarship has left its mark, for the appearance of the name in Domesday Book in the form 'Anna' has motivated the recent naming of 'Anna Valley' beside the stream in Upper Clatford, in effect a suburb of Andover. The immediate motivation may be the chapter title 'The Vale of Anna' in D H Moutray Read's 'Highways and Byways in Hampshire' (1908).
The villages are distinguished as ABBOT'S ANN, LITTLE ANN and AMPORT. Abbot's Ann belonged to Hyde Abbey (the grant is the document of 901 cited) and is about 1270 'Anne Abbatis'. Little Ann is 1540 'Anne Parva'. Amport was held by the important Hampshire landholder Hugh de Port at the time of Domesday Book, and appears as 1248 'Anne de Port' 1379 'Portesanne'.
See also MONXTON, SARSON and THRUXTON.
Listed in Domesday Book
- Welford Hundred - Hantescire - Wherwell Abbey - Wherwell parish: - Hampshire
Period - 11th century
TERRA AECCL~AE DE WARWELLE ... Ipsa abbatia ten. ANNA . Se~p tenuit ...
Listed in Domesday Book
- Andovere Hundred - Hantscire
Period - 11th century
