"Eccles" - significance of the word?

[Agent Dan 10]

There are 27 places with the word 'eccles' contained in their name in the North and North West. And a cake.

 

Why??? What is the significance of the word? Was it, perhaps, a person? A past-time? Or a dance maybe?

[back2basics 10]

It means Church in celtic.

[mowith 10]

Eccles is a word of Greek origin meaning an assembly

[Nutronic 10]

i will never look at a eccles cake the same ever again.......church assembly cake:o

[max 13]

Originally posted by SheffieldLive

i will never look at a eccles cake the same ever again.......church assembly cake:o

Do Bath Buns come out all pink and wrinkly if you leave them in too long?

[mikey 10]

Originally posted by Agent Dan

There are 27 places with the word 'eccles' contained in their name in the North and North West. And a cake.

 

 

And a very famous road in Sheffield.

[Agent Dan 10]

Originally posted by mikey

And a very famous road in Sheffield.

 

Really?! I never would have guessed... (but seriously the last thing I wanted to do was mention it (fear of major conflict!))

[Kry10 10]

Also, some people are named Eccles, such as my sons friend at school, known as James Eccles..........so there is an Eccles family, imagine how much they got called Eccles Cakes at school, poor them.

[Phanerothyme 12]

eccles as in ecclesiastical.

[max 13]

Originally posted by back2basics

It means Church in celtic.

That explains why Eccles from The Goons was so revered.

 

Pictures here for those too young to remember:

 

Eccles

[back2basics 10]

Originally posted by Phanerothyme

eccles as in ecclesiastical.

 

Never thought of that before, but now it makes sense!

[richardallan 10]

I was brought up to think that Ecclesall is spelt like that without an "h" as that is the Sheffield way but nearly everyone outside Sheffield spells it as "Eccleshall".

 

Does anyone know of any other Ecclesall's spelt like ours? And is ours just the result of the Yorkshire H dropping 'abit or is there some difference between Eccles-all and Eccles-hall?

 

BTW on the definition both the Celtic and Greek origins are in a sense correct. The origin is absolutely Greek as Mowith says. It was taken from there into Latin hence all the ecclesiastical type words. It went into Cornish Celtic as Eglos as in Egloshayle and Egloskerry in Cornwall (the k and g sound have a close relationship in Celtic languages). In French it evolves into the word Eglise. It may be that the French transition happened first and then it crossed to Cornwall from Brittany as they spoke the same sort of Celtic for a long time? Need a proper philologist here...

 

Whether our Eccles is from a Celtic root or an Anglo-Saxon/Danish one I don't know. This would have been a Danish controlled area pre-Norman conquest and I guess that an Eccles type root would have been absorbed into that language as well.