Lecturing on the subject across the Midlands, she published her research in a series of books, achieving prominence within academia for her 1978 work Signposts to the Past: The Geographical Roots of Britain's Place-names.

In the coming decades she focused on researching the place-names of Shropshire, resulting in a multi-volume publication, earning a number of awards and prominent appointments for her life's work.

[3][4] The first member of her family to attend university, she studied English language and literature at St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she was influenced by Dorothy Whitelock, who inspired her interest in place-names.

[2] Working for a year as a temporary civil servant in London, in 1946 she gained employment as a research assistant with the English Place-Name Society, based in Cambridge.

[2][4] She felt that her approach differed from Stenton's on political grounds; she believed most place-names had been developed by ordinary working people, whereas she thought that he "empathised with the ruling classes.

[4] She would undertake research for a PhD from the University of London by correspondence, supervised by Albert Hugh Smith; devoted to the place-names of West Berkshire, her thesis was completed in 1957.