landing

It is comparatively rare as a vocabulary item: 1519 Item that no man or woman dry no hempe in the dame, nor in the lendynges goynge to the dame, Selby. In fact, the use of ‘landing’ as a place-name element is key to the history of the word, which features regularly along the Ouse in undated twelfth-century documents, for example Sanct Martini Lending, York and Gatelending, Selby. Perhaps the earliest and most significant reference is in a Selby charter where Cuarlendding is probably a misreading of Cnarlendyng

it occurs in 1320 as ‘Knarlending near Seleby’ and the prefix is interpreted by Smith as a word for a small warship. ‘Lending’ is ultimately of Scandinavian origin, and was formerly common along the Ouse and its tributaries. Notable examples are later associated with river ports: 1389 Mildebylendyng, Boroughbridge

1392-3 Draxlendyng

1357 Paradislendyng. The last of these was in Hambleton, held by the abbot of Selby, and from there timber and underwood were conveyed by boat to the Ouse, along Selby dam. It was also a common element in York: 1300 Sywinlending

1375 ‘a lane called the Lymelending, from North Strete to the river Ouse’

1398 ‘the lane called Seintmartynlendyng in Conyngstrete’

1401 ‘the lane called Fishelendyng’. The latter is mentioned into the sixteenth-century when it is clearly defined: 1572-3 a pece of waist grounde ligheng … at the east end of the north syde of Ouse brig commonly called the fysshe landyng

and he to make a sufficyent landing place and way for the fysshemongars there. A foot-note identifies this site as a little quay on the east end of Ouse Bridge. On the little river Foss, in 1427, was ‘the lane called Sayntdinisselendyng’, and Lendal Bridge marks the site of St Leonard’s Landing, where timber and stone for the fabric of the Minster were off-loaded. It occurs as a by-name in the poll tax returns: 1377 de Thoma del Lendyng, York. A few place-names for which no early examples have come to light have the spelling ‘landing’, and further downstream, near to Selby, are the historic sites of Riccall Landing and Old Landing, traditionally seen as the place where the Scandinavian fleet was moored prior to the battle at Stamford Bridge. Wilfholme Landing is on the navigable river Hull and Free Landing is near Aldwark. In recorded history the ‘lendings’ were simply places where a boat might unload or take on cargo, not quays or staithes where the river bank would be reinforced by some sort of stone or wooden wall. In most cases the ‘landing’ was linked to the village further inland by a lane, as at Hemingbrough. The evidence implies that the first ‘lendings’ were disembarkation sites and they are associated with Scandinavians: it was comparatively late before ‘landing’ emerged as the modern spelling and shook off its links with river navigation. As a word for the ‘platform’ at the head of the stairs it is not on record before 1789 but in coal-mining a landing was a level place where coals might be loaded, sometimes a boarded area: 1715 from the Landing Board to the Seat under the coals, Farnley

1840 landing boards at Springfield Lane pit, Tong. The verb ‘to land’ was also part of the miner’s vocabulary: 1754 landing coals, Beeston.