THAT the name of the village of Boosbeck just outside Skelton involves running water should come as no surprise. - beck after all, today means, as it meant a thousand years ago, a stream.

But what about that mysterious Boos? Well, streams and waterfalls, wells and rivers attract all kinds of additions when named.

So we have waterways with trees, for example, England's several Elmswells, the Well of Elms; we have waterways recalling animals, Fangdale Beck, Stream in a Good Fishing Valley; and we even have names describing water quality eg Shirwell, the Clear Spring.

Boosbeck, however, along with Borrow Beck in Cumbria (the Stream with a Fort) slips into a rare and interesting subcategory - waterways connected with buildings.

Boos, in fact, comes from the antique English word bos meaning cow shed, giving us the rural-sounding Cow Shed Stream.

And when was this particular Cow Shed built?

As beck is, in origin, a Viking word, bekkr, as the northerners would have said, it is unlikely to predate the tenth-century Viking settlements in our region, nor can it be later than the 14th century when the Cow Shed Stream is finally recorded in writing as Bosbek.

Whether it was built in 900 or 1300, it stands, in any case, as the earliest recorded building from this corner of Cleveland. And when you think of early Boosbeck, you might hear the cows being taken out from the protected stockades to get their fill of water in the ringing stream that breaks earth just to the west of the modern village, and that rolls down the hill towards Skelton.

* Simon Young is a historian and author of AD500.