1) This common place-name element meant ‘earth’, and from the thirteenth century it occurred as a specific in a range of minor place-names.
n.d. following Moldecloyh as far as Wetecroftyerd, Hipperholme
1317 ‘a curtilage called Moldyerd’, Thornes. A.H. Smith has ‘molde’ linked with ‘croft, hill, royd and thwayt’ and I have found it with crymbyll in 1528. It has been noted several times with l?ac-t?n as the generic, e.g. 1308 three acres in moildelaghton, Sowerby and this may explain an unusual Almondbury name: 1583 mudlaghtonsteede. In everyday vocabulary it was used in the plural and meant ‘lumps of earth’: 1642 When they are to make a newe barne floore they grave it all over and then rake it ... till the mowles bee indifferent small, Elmswell.