Essex place names with unusual / unexpected local pronunciations?

[melba_schmelba]

Was very confused whilst going through an 1815 will of a butcher in London, who mentioned his father, who was of 'Elstone in the County of Essex'  ...obviously no such place exists  . On further investigation using the testator's name and his father and brother's names mentioned, I was able to work at where was being mentioned ......Earls Colne!!! Is anyone local to that area who could confirm that locals do or may have pronounced it that way ? Also be interested in any other place names that have unexpected (to the outsider) pronunciations.

[Christine53]

We've lived in Halstead ( 3 miles from Earls Colne ) for over 30 years and I've never come across this.  There is a group of villages which make up the Colnes , Earls Colne, White Colne , Wakes Colne and Colne Engaine , which are all set in the valley of the River Colne . ( Colne is pronounced Cone. )

[Treetotal]

You will find here...the nearest... if it is Easton :

https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/ESS/Towns

Carol

[melba_schmelba]

We've lived in Halstead ( 3 miles from Earls Colne ) for over 30 years and I've never come across this.  There is a group of villages which make up the Colnes , Earls Colne, White Colne , Wakes Colne and Colne Engaine , which are all set in the valley of the River Colne . ( Colne is pronounced Cone. )

Well that is very close local knowledge Christine . I suppose sadly many of those with the stronger older accents are dying out, not just in Essex but everywhere due to the influence of TV, internet, city accents like the London accent spreading into the surrounding areas.

I found a couple of interesting videos that had some Essex (as many other southern county) accents:

Recordings made by the German linguist Wilhelm Doegen of English prisoners at German POW camps in World War One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPJxS43ByYE

Survey of English Dialects (made between 1958-1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S8JR4eJAXA

couple of old books / articles on the Essex dialect

'The East Saxon Dialect by the Rev. John Mounteney Jephson, F.S.A.' (from Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society Vol. II, 1863)
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Essex_Archaeology_and_History/UjQGAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=essex%20dialect&pg=PA173&printsec=frontcover&bsq=essex%20dialect

'A Glossary of the Essex Dialect' by Richard Stephen Charnock, Ph. Dr. F.S.A., 1880
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Glossary_of_the_Essex_Dialect/tW8CAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=essex%20dialect&pg=PR1&printsec=frontcover&bsq=essex%20dialect

[melba_schmelba]

You will find here...the nearest... if it is Easton :

https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/ESS/Towns

Carol

Thanks Carole, I am pretty sure it was Earls Colne, as the brothers' children were all baptised there, and the father was buried there a couple of years later. It is an interesting thought though, that many people might not actually have known how to spell the place that they were from, if they were not literate. Even if they had learnt to read and write they might have never seen their home village actually printed or written down anywhere before they left and only knew the sound.

[melba_schmelba]

There weren't any Essex people on the 2nd video link, but you can hear 13 Essex recordings from the Survey of English dialects (and many more from other counties), made between 1950 - 1961, predominantly men over 65, here:

https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects

[findem]

Coggeshall was also known as Coxal, it appears spelled that way in some parts of the Parish Registers.

[arny]

My father was born in Beaumont cum Moze in 1914. The locals pronounced it Bemmont he told me. This is shown in the Dovercourt registers (amonst others) where the Beaumont family are Bemmont & Beamment when the vicar was not familiar with this variant.