What does 'wich' mean

[number8]

What does 'wich' mean, as in Woolwich, Dulwich, Greenwich etc... mean?

[Mortartube]

According to this site http://www.countrylovers.co.uk/places/placnams.htm
it means a dwelling or a farm

[sddsddean]

Latin, wich. In origin, -wic was a place-name element derived from the Latin vicus, place. Its most common meaning is dairy-farm. However, as the Domesday Book clearly shows, the element by itself had evolved the specialised meaning of salt-working by the eleventh century. The Domesday Wiches are the salt-working towns of Droitwich in Worcestershire, and Middlewich, Nantwich and Northwich in Cheshire. In Cheshire, the place-names have been left in the Latin form, Wich; but in Worcestershire and elsewhere the modern form of Droitwich is given. The modern place-name forms of the Cheshire Wiches have been incorporated in the text as editorial insertions. The separate treatment accorded to the salt-works in Cheshire, and the large number of references to Droitwich in Worcestershire and several other counties, may be taken as an indication of the significance of the salt-working towns in the economy of the region, and indeed of the country. I copied all that lot, but as I was born in Woolwich and there are no salt mines there, I would go for the dairy farm option.

[answerbok]

but the Cheshire wiches are indeed all old salt workings. sddsddean, so please reconsider, you old salt. ;-)

[FredPuli]

They could have produced sea-salt at Woolwich and Greenwich . Dulwich is harder, though the tide can come in a long way in those parts.

[sddsddean]

I know that answerbok. What I am saying is the London ones aren't, and as far as I know Fred, there aren't many salt pans by the Woolwich ferry!