Editing Rea Brook (section)

==Names and etymology==
The pronunciation of "Rea" varies between {{IPAc-en|r|iː}} {{respell|REE|'}} and {{IPAc-en|r|eɪ}} {{respell|RAY|'}}. The pronunciation most used by locals for the Shrewsbury river is {{IPAc-en|r|iː}}; the {{IPAc-en|r|eɪ}} pronunciation may have been introduced by incomers from [[Birmingham]], where a different [[River Rea]] is pronounced that way. The spelling of the brook's name also varies between ''Rea Brook'' and ''Reabrook''. The former form is used by Natural England and on [[Ordinance Survey]] maps. The latter spelling is from [[Shropshire Council]]'s own webpage about Rea Brook Valley.

Previously in history, the Rea Brook was known as the ''Meole Brook'',<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ayto|first1=John|last2=Crofton|first2=Ian|title=Brewer's Britain & Ireland|date=2005|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|location=London|isbn=0 304 35385 X|page=322}}</ref> and gives its name to two villages near Shrewsbury &ndash; [[Meole Brace]] and [[Cruckmeole]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ekwall|first1=Eilert|title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names|date=1966|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|page=322|oclc=400936}}</ref> There are two competing etymologies for the name of the brook. One is that it is simply the [[Old English]] word {{lang|ang|meolu}} ("meal, flour"), supposedly given because of the brook's cloudy colour. In this interpretation, the brook then gave its name to Crucmeole, whose first element would be the Old English word {{lang|ang|crōc}} ("[[cruck]]-framed building"), and whose name would thus originally have meant "cruck-framed building on the Meole Brook".<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2004 |isbn=9780521168557 |editor-last=Watts |editor-first=Victor |location=Cambridge}}, s.vv. ''Cruckmeole'', ''Meole Brace''.</ref> Alternatively, the name of Cruckmeole could come from the [[Common Brittonic]] words found today in modern Welsh as {{lang|cy|crug}} ("hillock") and {{lang|cy|moel}} ("bare"). In this interpretation, the name of the settlement once meant "bare hillock". When the dominant language of the area became English, English-speakers, no longer understanding the name, imagined that the name of the settlement came from the brook, and called the brook ''Meole Brook'' accordingly by [[folk-etymology]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coates |first=Richard |title=Celtic Voices, English Places: Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in Britain |last2=Breeze |first2=Andrew |publisher=Tyas |year=2000 |isbn=1900289415 |location=Stamford}}.</ref>{{rp|326}}