Cranleigh

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A market town in Surrey, England, known for its historic setting and nearby independent school ; a famous independent boarding school located in Surrey, England
2. A small English town in the county of Surrey ; a well-known private boarding school situated in Surrey, England
3. A town in the south of England in Surrey county ; an independent co-educational boarding school that takes its name from the town in Surrey

Etymology: Cranleigh is a village and civil parish in Surrey, and its name is a plain piece of Old English place-naming. The first element is "cran", meaning "crane" (the bird), and the second is "lēah", a word for a wood or woodland clearing. Put together in the genitive plural, the name means roughly "the cranes' wood clearing", the sort of description early English settlers gave to a spot where the birds were seen. The surprise is how recently the spelling settled. For a long time the place was written "Cranley", but in 1867 the name was changed to "Cranleigh". The reason was practical rather than scholarly: the post office and the railway kept confusing it with Crawley, another place name in the south of England. The change was made to stop letters and trains going to the wrong town, so the modern spelling is a administrative fix rather than a return to an older form.