The poetic-sounding village name has a more prosaic explanation. Three streams rise in the parish and in Saxon times, the water was forded over a sandy bottom from which the name SandFord derives. The 'Orcas' descends from the Norman "Orescuilz" family, who came to own the village manor in the century after the Battle of Hastings. The village was known as "Sanford" in 1086 (Domesday Book), "Sandford" in 1243, "Sandford Horscoys" in 1372, and "Samford Orescoys" in 1427. The present manor house goes back five hundred years to the Tudors, it has changed little since.