Blubberhouses (12 S. xi. 369, 439, 477).—The old forms quoted for this place-name show it to be a “blue” name. In Herefordshire we have Blue Mantle and Blue Bowl, both of which I found to be on well confirmed sighted trackways, the latter having a Bowl place-name on the same track within a quarter mile, both on banks. There is another Blue Bowl place in the Mendips, a Blue Bell Hill in Kent, and a Blue Bell crossroads close to Uriconium, Shropshire.
In the Exeter-Tynmouth map is Blue Hayes (east of Exeter); a mile or so south is Dymond’s Farm. Now I had already
made a surmise that the “blue” place-names were spots where the trader in some form of blue goods met his
buyers, but “blue” names are not plentiful. However, the said Blue Hayes and Dymond places are precisely on
a straight track well confirmed by several bits of existing roads on it, passing close against Topsham Church and over
the Exe to Mainhead Camp and Church. This surmise assumes a reference to dyeing fabrics with woad—sometimes, I
think, “wad” or “wode” in place-names. I am quite prepared to find that a Blue Hill is not blue,
because my trackways-work has given abundant evidence that the “white,” “red,”
“black” and “gold” places are not so called from local hue, but because traders in wares (salt,
pots, charcoal or iron, etc.) which can be so described, same along the tracks
of which the places are sighting points.
Alfred Watkins.
Hereford.
Source info: MS note “N & Q Dec 23rd”; checked in library.