Etymology

Burgh in general tends to mean town/township in Old Norse and Old German. The parish is referred to simply as “Burg” in the Doomsday book, becoming Burghwallis in the early 13th century when Dionysia – one of seven surviving daughters of the local lord – was married into the Wallis family. The Wallis family line persisted among the local landowners through to the early 17th century   by which time the name of the settlement was so far removed from that of the local aristocracy that the succeeding Anne family appear not to have thought to change it. The name literally means “village of the Wallis family”