Origin of the Hiley name

George Redmonds, in ‘A Dictionary of Yorkshire Surnames’, says that the Hiley/Highley name is from High Lee in Luddenden near Halifax. High Lee is a small area on the Sowerby hillside above the Calder valley.

The modern Hiley or Highley name has generally been assumed to mean a ‘high clearing’ or a ‘high meadow’. But the early records, like Helileghe or Heylyligh, include an extra syllable. In ‘The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire’ A.H. Smith suggests that the first part of the surname is from the Anglo Saxon word ‘hygel’, a hillock. ‘Leah’ was an Anglo Saxon word for clearing. So the name might have originally meant a 'clearing on a hillock’.

In ‘Yorkshire West Riding’ in the English Surname Series, George Redmonds gives the first appearance of the name in the West Riding as being in 1297. This is an entry in the Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield for Thomas del Hegeleye, and this name would fit in with Smith’s reasoning, but there appear to be no other spellings similar to this one, i.e. including the letter g.

George Redmonds writes: ‘The problem with Highley has always been the interpretation of the earliest spellings. I have to say that I gave that as evidence because it fitted A.H. Smith’s etymology of the Luddenden place-name. Since that time more evidence has become available but no similar spellings that I know of. Mostly the surname examples follow a pattern, e.g. Heylilygh, Helylye and that persists well into the fifteenth century. I have sometimes wondered if Hegeleye was a mis-transcription for Heyeleye’.

This photo is taken from Hathershelf looking across to High Lee. In the distance on the left is the Warley hillside across the Calder valley.