Wom Brook

The Wom Brook is a stream in South Staffordshire, England. It flows through the large village of Wombourne, and has played an important part in its industrial history. It is an important tributary of the River Smestow and part of the Severn catchment.

The name of the stream is probably a back-formation from the name of the village of Wombourn or Wombourne. The word burna was used for a stream in the oldest strata of Old English toponyms. The village name was long thought to mean “Womb Stream”, or stream in a hollow,[1] because this is a reasonable description of the situation. More recently the interpretation Crooked Stream,[2] has gained favour.

The stream itself is not named in Domesday and medieval documents relating to the village. However, to turn the first element in the village name into a designation for the stream was logical and the Wom Brook is so-named on Ordnance Survey maps, although not on earlier maps.

The Old English term brōca, another word for a stream, is later than burna and its derivative, brook, continues in use as a common noun in the English Midlands, while burn has become confined to Scotland and Northern England. This makes it fairly certain the name Wom Brook is of considerably later origin than the village name. Occasionally it is found in elided form as Wombrook.