Place-names from hām, distinguished from hamm names, in relation to the settlement of Kent, Surrey and Sussex

The element OE hām, ‘a village, a village community, an estate, a manor, a homestead’, is generally reckoned to belong to an early stratum of English place-names. Within this stratum, and especially in the type in -ingham from OE -ingahām, it is associated with place-names from OE -ingas and -inga- (the genitive composition form). The same common antiquity is noted on the continent between place-names from OHG -heim and those from OHG -ing. In recent years an attempt has been made at a re-appraisal of the value of the place-name from OE -ingas, -inga-, including the numerous -ingahām type, as evidence of the progress of the English settlements, while other recent work has seen the beginning of an examination of the place-names containing OE -hām and the compounds wīc-hīm, hīm-tūn, hām-stede and hām-st(e)all: the distribution of the compound wāc-hām has been shown to be related very particularly to Roman roads and Roman archaeology, and it has been recognized that in Cheshire (see fig. 1), place-names in -ham from -hām and in -ingham (<-ing(a)hām) are distributed in a pattern based on the run of the Roman roads.