Ilfracombe has been settled since the Iron Age, when the Dumnonii Celts established a hill fort on the dominant hill, Hillsborough (formerly Hele's Barrow). The origin of the town's name has two possible sources. The first is that it is a derivative of the Anglo-Saxon "Alfreinscoma" - by which name it was noted in the "Liber Exoniensis" of 1086. The translation of this name (from Walter William Skeat of the department of Anglo Saxon at Cambridge University) means the "Valley of the sons of Alfred". The second origin is that the name Ilfracombe was derived from Norse "illf" (bad), Anglo-Saxon "yfel" (evil ford) and Old English "cumb" (valley or bottom) from Cornish "komm", Welsh "cwm", thus 'The valley with the bad ford'.