Chester (placename element)
Geographic clustering of the suffixes:
-caster 
-cester 
-chester 
-cetter/-xeter
-caster 
-cester 
-chester 
-cetter/-xeterThe English place-name Chester, and the suffixes -chester, -caster and -cester (old -ceaster), are commonly indications that the place is the site of a Roman castrum, meaning a military camp or fort (cf. Welsh caer), but it can also apply to the site of a pre-historic fort.[1] Names ending in -cester are nearly always reduced to -ster when spoken, the exception being "Cirencester", which (commonly nowadays) is pronounced in full.[2] However, names ending in -ster are not necessarily related, as the Irish province of Leinster, which comes from the tribe Laigin + Irish tír or Old Norse staðr, both meaning "land" or "territory". The pronunciation of names ending in -chester or -caster is regular.
A
[edit]B
[edit]- Bewcastle, formerly Buthcaster (1263).[3]
- Bicester
- Binchester
- Brancaster
C
[edit]- Caister-on-Sea
- Caistor
- Caistor St Edmund
- Casterton, Cumbria
- Casterton, Great, Rutland
- Casterton, Little, Rutland
- Castor, Cambridgeshire
- Chester
- Cheshire, Chester-shire
- Chester, Little, Derby
- Chesterfield
- Chesterford, Great
- Chesterford, Little
- Chester-le-Street
- Chesterton (disambiguation)
- Chesterwood
- Chichester
- Cirencester
- Colchester
- Craster[4]
D
[edit]- Doncaster
- Dorchester
- Dorset, Dor-chester-seat
- Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
E
[edit]F
[edit]G
[edit]- Gloucester
- Gloster Hill (near Amble, Northumberland)[5]
- Godmanchester
- Grantchester
H
[edit]- Hincaster
- Horncastle, known in Old English as Hyrnecastre[6]
I
[edit]K
[edit]L
[edit]- Lancaster
- Lancashire, Lune-caster-shire
- Lanchester
- Leicester
M
[edit]- Mancetter
- Manchester
- Monkchester, modernised form of Munucceaster, the Old English name for Newcastle upon Tyne.
- Muncaster
P
[edit]R
[edit]S
[edit]T
[edit]W
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ Ekwall, E. (1960). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (4th ed.). OUP. p. 92. ISBN 0-19-869103-3.
- ^ Wells, John C. (2000). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. 2nd ed. Longman. ISBN 0-582-36468-X.
- ^ Sedgefield, Walter John (1915). Place names of Cumberland and Westmorland. Manchester University Press. p. 13. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
- ^ "Key to English Place-names - Craster, Northumberland". University of Nottingham. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
- ^ "A Key to English Place-Names - Gloster Hill, Northumberland". University of Nottingham. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
- ^ "Key to English Place-names - Horncaslte, Lincolnshire". University of Nottingham. Retrieved 22 December 2024.