Swallowmead like several or the other road names on the Riding’s Mead estate, is an invented word made by joining the name of a bird with the name of a geographical feature.
Swallow
There are many species of swallow, some of which are migratory and some of which are not 1. According to the RSPB, ‘Recent declines due to loss of habitat quality in both their breeding and wintering grounds mean they are an Amber List species.’ 2
Mead
‘Mead’ is an old form of the word ‘meadow’. 3
Swallowing mead
There is another meaning of the word mead – ‘an alcoholic liquor made of fermented honey and water’. So ‘swallowmead’ could alternatively be interpreted as drinking mead.
Footnotes
- Swallow – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [↩]
- The RSPB: Swallow [↩]
- mead – definition of mead by the Online Dictionary from Datasegment.com [↩]
[...] as noted elsewhere (see Swallowmead) is an old English form of the word meadow. ‘Mead’ as part of a road name seems to have [...]
[...] The theme for the road names on Ridings Mead is to join the name of a bird with the name of a geographical feature, for example ’swallow’ and ‘mead’ to make Swallowmead. [...]
[...] The roads on the estate are mainly named after birds. Typically with the name of the bird being joined to a word which is typically part of a road name. So other roads on the estate are Ravenscroft and Swallowmead. [...]