The Owers, Les Ours, Weembrug and 'The Old City': Place-Names, History and Submarine Archaeology

Abstract

Until recently, little attention has been paid to the names of features of particular interest to mariners around the coasts of the British Isles, perhaps because it was not generally realised that most of the earliest relevant evidence is only available from non-English sources. Four recent studies of English and Welsh coastal names have shown that some features were known by more than one name. Such naming variations occur also in the case of the shoals called The Owers, off Selsey Bill.