Warnborough Green
Warnborough Green, Odihamcounty:
coords:
Hampshire
SU7252
WARNBOROUGH (NORTH), WARNBOROUGH GREEN, village/hamlet in Odiham
WARNBOROUGH (SOUTH), parish
Hypothetical Old English 'Weargaburna'='felons' stream', where malefactors were drowned. (Cf Kristensson (1981) Arngart (1983), Sandred (1984) for discussion of a similar, though not historically identical, name in Norfolk, once thought to have a common origin with 'Warnborough'.) Puzzlingly, there is not a trace of a stream now at South Warnborough (below 'Wells Hill') to which the earliest forms appear to refer. North Warnborough is on the river Whitewater. Grundy (1927: 286-7) confidently identifies the Old English forms with South Warnborough; however there is no boundary clause to the relevant charter and considerable uncertainty about the course of the bounds written in 1046. We must reckon with the original Warnborough being N., or that N. and S. once formed some kind of unit.
In the 13th century both place names are rationalized as containing Middle English 'burgh' and the 'n' migrates to the first syllable to compensate. Occasional forms are found with 'gh' or 'n' in both elements (1291 'Suthwargheborgh' 1235 'Warnburn').
A reason to pause before accepting this rather spectacular etymology wholesale is that no origin is known for the common dialect word 'werg'='willow', which makes good sense with 'burna'.
