Dene (valley)

The dene of Halgut Burn

"Dene" as a living word in Northumbria: here used constructively to coin a novel toponym for Halgut Dene

A dene or dean (Old English: denu) used to be a common name for a valley, in which sense it is frequently found as a component of British place-names, such as Rottingdean and Ovingdean in England and Deanston and Hassendean in Scotland.

It is a cognate of den, from the Old English denn, a cave or "lurking place".

The word still survives in the Northumbrian dialect. In the English counties of Durham and Northumberland a dene is a steep-sided wooded valley through which a burn runs. Many of the incised valleys cut by small streams that flow off the Durham and Northumberland plateau into the North Sea are given the name Dene, as in Castle Eden Dene and Crimdon Dene in County Durham and Jesmond Dene in Tyne and Wear.