Steeple Morden – Origin of Name

Morden means literally “hill in the marsh”, from the Olde English words mor and dun. In reality, perhaps more akin to a hillock in a bog? Certainly, the surroundings would have been much wetter back then and the modern road name Bogs Gap echoes that.

Often written in early times as Mordune, the name appears by 1015 and applied to both Steeple & Guilden. They probably started life as a single parish or land holding, which divided over time as two centres of population developed or from the influence of holders of landed estates.

Mordune is mentioned nine times in the Domesday Book 1086 and differentiation between the two villages is only possible based on the various land owners and their holdings. There is, however, one reference to the “other Mordune” in respect of Guilden, so two Mordens were emerging. Many variant spellings of Mordune appeared in different documents over the years. Then, by the early 1200s, North and South were being used as prefixes to differentiate between the two different Mordens.

North was soon replaced by Guilden, which is first noted in 1204. It is the Olde English gylden for golden in the sense of rich, productive or splendid. Suggests it was a little less boggy.

In South Morden the church was rebuilt in more substantial form in the early 1200s, including a substantial central tower and steeple and from this prominent feature, the southern Morden took the name Steeple Morden. This use was first recorded in 1242 and in the early days the prefix appeared in a variety of spellings, including Stepel, Stupel, Stepil, Stepul and Stiple, before standardising in modern times as Steeple.

All was well for almost 400 years, but then the steeple came tumbling down in the great storm of August 1625, when the the poorly maintained central tower collapsed, causing in the process severe damage to the chancel. The parish now lacked the feature after which it was named! Despite discussion and wrangling over many years the tower was never rebuilt.