Clare, Clere, and Clères

The name of Clare in Suffolk is one of the few major settlement names in East Anglia of unknown etymology. A similar mystery surrounds the Hampshire names Kingsclere, Highclere, and Burghclere, all containing the element clere which must have a single origin. Clères is a village north of Rouen in Normandy. There is a remarkable lack of variation on the early spellings of all these names, which are most often Clara, Clera, or Clere. The purpose of this article is to examine the hypothesis that these three place-names are identical in origin, and to discuss what that origin might be. To do this it is necessary to look at the history of each place, and of the noble families associated with them. The known facts about Clare before the Conquest are meagre (Martin 1997; Thornton 1928a,b, 1963). An earthwork on the north side of the town (TL 769 458) is possibly of iron-age date, but might also be a purely Saxon-period thegn’s burh. Archaeological investigation in the 1990s found only remains of medieval farm buildings. If the site of Clare had a strategic importance before the Normans, it must have been because of its location at the junction of the Chilton Stream with the Stour. The Stour forms the border of Essex, and this may reflect an ancient tribal boundary. The east-west road from Haverhill through Clare to Cavendish is probably Roman (Margary 1967: road number 34a). In the mid-11th century Clare belonged to Ælfric son of Wihtgar (DB) who founded a church of St. John the Baptist and installed a college of seven secular canons. By 1066 Ælfric’s son, another Wihtgar, held the estates, but lost them before 1086 to the first Norman lord, Richard, son of Gilbert of Brionne. Richard built a castle on the Stour, and was succeeded by his son, another Gilbert.