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Meaning & History
English place name which may be a corruption of "bleak heath", or simply mean "dark heath" from Old English blæc "black" and hǣth (see also Heath). According to a false popular belief, the place (originally an open heathland) was given its name due to its reputed use as a mass burial ground for victims of the Black Death in the 1340s. In the 19th century the name was applied to a newly developed London suburb (the setting of Julian Symons' Victorian mystery novel 'The Blackheath Poisonings', 1978).