PLACE-NAME SPELLINGS NOT FROM HEMP

Dope in Hampstead: sorry, nope. Unfortunately item eight in your list of
'Ten pieces of dope about cannabis' (Focus, last week) is inaccurate in
linking the word hemp with 'place-names like Hampstead and Hemel Hempstead',
in spite of their temptingly similar current forms. As ever, it is
etymologically dangerous to associate modern place-name spellings with
vocabulary words.

Early spellings for all of the places now called Hampstead (including the
one in London and Hampstead Norreys in Berkshire) and for all but one of the
places now called Hempste(a)d (including Hemel) show that they derive from
the Old English word hamstede or haemstede - 'a homestead or site of a
dwelling'. The spellings with 'p' are excrescent and quite unhistorical.

The only exception is Hempstead in Norfolk, which is indeed a 'place where
hemp was grown', from Old English haenep or henep - 'hemp' - and stede -
'place'.

However, the cultivation of hemp in earlier times is widely referred to in
medieval and later field-names (such as Hempacres, Hemperoft, Hemp Field,
Hemplands and Hempyard) found in most English counties.

A.D. Mills, Editor, 'Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names' West Wickham Kent