Welwyn
| Welwyn | |
|---|---|
 St Mary the Virgin, Welwyn |
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 Welwyn
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| Welwyn shown within Hertfordshire | |
| Population | 8,425 (2011 Census) |
| OS grid reference | TL225165 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | WELWYN |
| Postcode district | AL6 |
| Dialling code | 01438 |
| Police | Hertfordshire |
| Fire | Hertfordshire |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Welwyn /ˈwɛlɪn/ is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. The parish also includes the villages of Digswell and Oaklands. It is sometimes called Old Welwyn to distinguish it from the much newer settlement of Welwyn Garden City, about a mile to the south, though some residents dislike the suggestion of inferiority or irrelevance that tends to be implied by the moniker "Old" and prefer Welwyn Village.
The name is derived from Old English welig meaning "willow", referring to the trees that nestle on the banks of the River Mimram as it flows through the village. The name itself is an evolution from weligun, the dative form of the word, and so is more precisely translated as "at the willows", unlike nearby Willian which is likely to mean simply "the willows".
Through having its name derived from welig rather than sealh (the more commonly cited Old English word for willow), Welwyn is possibly cognate with Heligan in Cornwall whose name is derived from helygen, the Cornish word for willow that shares a root with welig.
The nearby modern village of Digswell (around Welwyn North railway station) was originally called 'High Welwyn' when first developed at the beginning of the 20th century.
Situated in the valley of the River Mimram, Welwyn has hosted human activity since the Palaeolithic with stone tools from that era having been found alongside the river and further inland across the area. Settlement across the area seems to have become established during the Bronze Age according to various recovered artefacts and crop marks left by round barrows and burial mounds from that period.
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