THE VILLAGE of Ramshaw in Bishop Auckland is one of the contenders for the smelliest in England, at least if we take its name seriously.

We refer here not to the second part of the word that leads us back to the Dark Age English word halh – Ramshaw was Ramsall in the 14th century – giving us ‘corner of land’, but rather to the delectable ram.

For ram or hramsa, as our ancestors would have called it, was flowering wild garlic. Here then at the Garlicky Corner was good ground for ancient gourmets who searched out the exquisite leaves of allium ursinum – a plant that typically grows on low-lying, wet land and that walkers often smell passing through woods in spring.

Ramshaw’s flowering garlic probably grew where the Gaunless and the Gordon Beck run today, in the muddy wastelands by their sides locals will, a thousand years ago, have knelt to pick up the stinking bounty of their village.

And though not as strong as ‘normal garlic’, beware, wild garlic still packs a punch. One medieval herbalist had to warn that its leaves should be eaten only “by such as are of a strong constitution and labouring men”.

It was also credited with having magical qualities. Indeed, in the earliest English charms garlic – along with wild onions – was a fundamental ingredient.

And if Ramshaw is not the smelliest spot in England what then are its contenders? Well we have Ramsey in Essex, the Garlic Island; Ramsgill in North Yorkshire, the Garlic Ravine; and the beautifulsounding Ramshorn in the Midlands, the Garlic Promontory.