A note on the Village of Seal

The name of Seal village near Sevenoaks has been taken to be derived from the Old English Sele and this is correct. However, the Old English word Sele had three different meanings: the first was 'hall' (as in distinguished house), the second was 'a willow copse' and the third was 'muddy pond' or 'bog'.

As the meaning was thought to be 'hall', local historians have sought some indication of the whereabouts of such a structure in the records and archaeologically, but no trace of it has ever been found.

Whilst listening to Dr Margaret Gelling lecture on place-names the thought occurred that perhaps the wrong meaning had been attributed in this instance. The rendering as 'willow copse' can be discounted as these are too prevalent in the area to be used as a name to distinguish any one place; which leaves the 'muddy pond'.

There is a muddy pond at Seal. Until the very recent past it has drawn attention to itself by regularly flooding the junction of two roads leading south just outside the village. Discussions with Dr Gelling and Dr Paul Cullen, Anglo-Saxon language expert working on the place-names volume for Kent, Hampshire and Surrey, have led to the conclusion that the village was named for this muddy pond, and not a hall.

Another fact which has puzzled historians and has been attributed to an error on the part of the scribes compiling the record, is that in Domesday Book this village is entered (as La Sela) under Ruxley (then called Helmestrei) Hundred lying adjacent to the north west boundary of Coddesheath Hundred which is where the village is actually situated. The reason for this has been revealed by a perusal of the list of assessments for a tax known as the Lay Subsidy.

The Lay Subsidy tax was levied on land-holders within, and collected by, the Hundred. Copies of the lists naming those who paid it in 1301/2 in the Hundreds of Ruxley and Sommerden are in Dr Gordon Ward's folio notebooks deposited in Sevenoaks Library Archives. The list for this year is the earliest, and Coddesheath Hundred is not shown. The later lists show both Coddesheath and its southerly neighbour Sommerdenne Hundred, but not Ruxley. Whether this is selective editing on the part of the copyist, or whether the original lists were incomplete it is impossible at present to say.

The record for Ruxley Hundred is incomplete. It is divided into six sections: Hever, Bexley, Bexley Foots Cray, Cudham, Chelsfield and Orpington. The two last have only four names shown out of a possible sixty-one (they are all numbered) but this is enough. Under the Manor of Chelsfield the name Apsolon is present, and under the Manor of Orpington the name of John de la Zele (Seal). The latter speaks for itself and the name Apsolon, now rendered Absalom, is still present as a property at the then southernmost boundary of Seal Parish (now Underriver). This name is distinctive, and there is no duplicate in the records relating to northwest Kent. These entries indicate that even two centuries after Domesday was compiled some land holdings at Seal were outlying areas of Ruxley Hundred, and that implies the entry in that record was correct. It is reinforced by the fact that the owners of the various Ruxley Manors can be demonstrated from other records to have been in possession of land in the Seal area for several centuries following 1086.

All the assessments listed under Ruxley appear to relate to holdings outside the Hundred itself, and this is certainly true of Hever (actually situated in Sommerdenne Hundred), named as a part of the grant of Bexley (lying within Ruxley Hundred), by King Cenwulf of Mercia, then ruling Kent, to Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury, in a charter dated AD814.

Ann R. Elton

References:

1. Ekwall E. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th ed. p 409
2. Wallenberg J.K. The Place-Names of Kent, p63
3. Smith A.H. English Place-Name Elements, Part II p117
4. Gelling Dr M. The Landscape of Place-Names, p63 and a personal communication
5. Knocker H.W. The Valley of Holmesdale, A.C.XXXI p167
6. Ward Dr G. Lay Subsidies, Sevenoaks Library Archives
7. Birch W de Gray. Cartularium Saxonicum No.346 Wallenberg J.K. Kentish Place-Names, pp133-5 For identification of place names Sawyer P.H. Anglo-Saxon Charters, p115 Witney K.P. The Jutish Forest, p219