One of the four settlements that together made up the Bree-land, Combe lay in a deep valley on the eastern side of the Bree-hill. It was somewhat to the north of Staddle, but not so distant from Bree as Archet on the fringes of the Chetwood. Its name comes ultimately from an Old English word cumb meaning a deep valley: the same root-word occurs in the name Deeping-coomb, the valley of Helm's Deep far to the south in Rohan.