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Thanks to everyone for the replies. A Dutch origin in Norwich is looking very convincing, and the French word is irrelevant. It's strange that in PN Nf 1, in examples such as St Andrew's Plain, no comment is made on the word. And on pp.93-4, referring to Snailgate 1492, it is said that Snackegate t. Eliz 1 is a corruption. Why is this not just the substitution of a synonymous Dutch word *snake (akin to German Schnecke, rather than modern Dutch slak)?

PS: a cognate word is used in Croatian for a town square, as in this example from Split.

From: The English Place-Name List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Trevor Ogden <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 08 October 2019 17:21
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Plains in towns

Great Yarmouth has Church Plain, Priory Plain, White Horse Plain, and a Brewery Plain car park (though I'm not sure if there is a square of that name) and maybe more. Kings Lynn has South Lynn Plain. There are other Church Plains in Loddon, Wells on Sea, Mattishall, and North Walsham, and a Connaught Plain in Attleborough. All of these places are in Norfolk. There are also Millennium Plain and University Plain in Norwich. From the last two examples it looks as if it has genuinely current usage for naming.

Everyone says that it was Dutch immigrants that brought the name to Norwich. Maybe there are proper studies of this theory. According to Frank Meeres, "The Story of Norwich" (Phillimore, 2011), 30 master weavers and their families were invited to settle in Norwich in 1565, most of them Dutch speakers but some French. By 1579, there were 6000 of these "strangers" out of a total population of 16,000. In an earlier version of this book, titled "A history of Norwich" (Phillimore, 1998) Meeres says that there was a Dutch-speaking congregation in Norwich until 1820.

Trevor

Trevor Ogden

Dereham, Norfolk, UK

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On Tue, 8 Oct 2019 at 13:40, Keith Briggs <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

OED plain, n.¹ 2b is "English regional (chiefly East Anglian). A flat or open space in a town. Chiefly in place names".

In fact all the examples given are in Norwich except for one in Oxford. Ipswich has a St Margaret's Plain.

Are there instances as names in other towns?

Where does this particular usage come from? Perhaps Dutch, since OED says "with sense 2b compare Dutch plein open space outside a building, town square (16th cent. in this sense; in Middle Dutch in more general senses; < French)?

Keith

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